


Death Takes A Holiday: Machinations on the Orient Express

by LyraNgalia, rude_not_ginger



Series: Death Takes A Holiday [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Deductions, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Gen, Great Hiatus, Honesty, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Multi, Murder Mystery, Poisoning, Serial Killers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes play a dangerous game with Mycroft Holmes, daring the British Government to track down and stop their misbehaviour. Will their triple bluff be enough to throw the elder Holmes off their scent? Or will a seemingly benign train ride from Vienna to Stockholm cut short their holiday?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Speed of Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Please see [_Death Takes A Holiday: In the Shadow of the Black Mountain_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/694742) for notes/explanations on the peculiarities of this fic's writing style.

The polished wood and plush drapes of the Orient Express gleamed with history and luxury, their private train car a cocoon against modern Vienna and the still-thrumming balls that drove the city. The train engine hummed as it pulled out of the station, and Irene stretches in the velvet upholstered chair (the pamphlet in their train car claimed the furniture was original, she knew better) and puts the last flourish on a hand written note.

`Tonight's symphony performance was lovely. Sorry for interrupting it. `  
`You'll hear from me soon, Sibyl.  
`Always, “Yvette”``

She waits for the ink to dry, then folds the thick, cream coloured stationary in half and slips it into the violin case.  
  
That done, she turns away from the desk and towards her traveling companion. "Telling your brother's spy exactly where we were going. That's bold."

 

"Hardly," he says. "He may work out that we were being genuine, but it will take him a few days of mulling over it before he figures it out. He'll look everywhere around Stockholm but not _in_ Stockholm until he's exhausted himself."  
  
He enjoys train rides in much the same way that he enjoys the luggage at the airport. There's so much to see, so much missed, and he can see all of it. The ride in Canada was difficult due to the people on board, but this time there's nothing but himself, the Woman, and the long ride ahead of them.  
  
"Yvette," he says. "French."

 

She looks pleased at the idea, at the imagined irritation the elder Holmes would feel when he realized it. She isn't certain whether that or the photos his spy would provide would cause more consternation. Irene personally hopes the combination will give him an ulcer.  
  
"No matter how hard you try, it's always a self portrait," she reminds him. She remembers the disguise, the adopted name, the cover of a French journalist. Not one of her favourites, but it had been effective.  
  
"French is fitting."

 

"Is it?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "Far too passive for someone of your caliber, Woman."  
  
Though, indeed, she would shine through that disguise. Intelligent, capable, manipulative. All the things that make her who she is would become part of this. He thinks of the blonde politician's wife and what a startling difference it was. The contrast was the negative, showing Sherlock more of the Woman.

 

She rises from the velvet upholstered chair fluidly, mirroring his raised eyebrow with one of her own. Between her injured leg and the swaying of the train, she's abandoned the heels, instead standing on bare feet. Without her artificial height, he physically towers over her, but physical strength had never been the defining factor in their equation.  
  
"Or just suggestive enough of passivity to lead to being underestimated," she answers with a smile. "Or have you forgotten?"

 

"I never forget," he replies. She positively fills the room with herself, and he feels like he's facing off with someone of his height, his mass, his intellect. Her ability to become the person who fills the room always awes him, though he'll never admit it.  
  
"Will she be worth your disguise, though? That's the question."

 

"And it's my question to answer," she reminds him. The implication is clear, that it will only be her disguise that will be revealed to Sibyl if she so chose, that she will keep his, at least until Richard Brook was revealed to be a fiction and he chose to reveal himself.  
  
She turns to him, her fingers lingering along the violin case. A twitch of a smile at her lips, almost teasing. "But I'm touched by your concern."

 

His lips twitch as well. Not a proper smile, but the implication that one is appropriate here. Concern. If only she knew just how difficult concern could be for him, she might appreciate his frustration.  
  
"Naturally," he replies. "I simply don't want you to waste your resources."  
  
He imagines she won't. She is capable. Very capable, and she will use what he'll give her in Moscow perfectly.

 

Or perhaps she knows better than most how difficult it is to draw concern, to draw any emotion at all, from him, because she has tried and failed and succeeded. And she does enjoy his frustration.  
  
"There's a painting Sibyl has in her possession," she tells him, crossing the train car to the window. She pushes aside the thick drapes, but with the light within the car, the midnight landscape is hard to see. There is no reason to tell him her plan, not really. She knows it will work, that she doesn't need a second opinion. But she shares, because she enjoys these moments, these times when the plans laid out aren't simply hers, when his intellect and her cleverness tie together in a way that she doubts there will be a chance for again, after Moscow.  
  
"A Van Gogh, I believe. The forgery was sold to a rather prominent businessman in London six months ago. Exactly the sort of rising power your Miss Riley would want to interview, do an exposé on. Ruin."

 

Sherlock shakes his head. "She won't want to ruin him. He never hurt her. Her writing motivations are based solely around emotion and revenge."  
  
Not that Sherlock is particularly open about his confrontation with Kitty. He hadn't even considered her worthy of memory, or mentioning to John. But she remembered Sherlock, oh yes. Enough to throw his words back in his face.

 

She turns from the black view outside at his answer and studies him with a searching, penetrating gaze, weighing his words, the hidden, heavy current of truth behind them.  
  
"Is that what you did. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

 

He sniffs. "I'm still not entirely certain what she was looking for, but I informed her I was not interested. She took it poorly."

 

That makes her smile, equal parts smug superiority and soft fondness. It is not a combination she wears frequently, but she finds herself wearing it more often, now.  
  
"It's rather obvious. A story, a big break in investigative journalism. Well, popular journalism. Fame." She arches an eyebrow. "Or she could have just found you attractive, but that's dull."

 

"She initially asked me to autograph her breast," he says. "It is entirely possible she wanted to be able to write that I had done so."  
  
He pulls his cigarettes from his pocket and moves to light one.  
  
"She was repelling. Obvious, desperate."

 

"Well, she didn't know what you like."  
  
She turns back to the window, running a light fingertip against the window, as if connecting imaginary points, watching him light a cigarette in the reflection of the glass. "But if she's that easy to bait, then it'd hardly be any trouble at all to bait her with some slight. An assignment to interview the businessman in question. An interview appointment that's lost. He's arrogant, busy. She'll be rebuffed, or propositioned. Insulted, no doubt. Wanting to get even."

 

A slight twitch of a smirk appears at the edge of his lips at her suggestion. Kitty would be insulted, offended, and likely eat half a pint of mint chocolate ice cream in order to make herself feel better before planning to ruin him. That would be good.  
  
"Miss Vane will, of course, be willing to assist?"

 

She tsks, her smirk obvious in the window's reflection. "You haven't figured out all of my secrets yet, Mr. Holmes," she admonishes. Her fingers run along another route on the imaginary map traced on the glass.  
  
"But ready for revenge, your Miss Riley hears a rumour that our businessman's tastes are not nearly as sophisticated as they seem, that he's hardly the sharp-eyed genius his colleagues seem to believe. Why, he can't even tell a forged painting from the real thing."  
  
She taps her nail against the glass. "He'll want to prove that is untrue, of course, and what's the best way to do that then to send the painting to an expert. In the Americas, perhaps? Or Paris."

 

Sherlock's smirk widens and he turns to look at the Woman.  
  
"I do so enjoy that mind of yours, Woman."

 

It isn't the compliment itself that sends the beginnings of a thrill of warm pleasure down her spine, for as far as compliments went, it was rather mild. But the very fact that he _admits_ it. They are, after all, better in the spaces between words, in the action behind the words or the silence behind the action.  
  
She hums thoughtfully, pleased. "I'd say you should show that enjoyment, but then you'd be distracting," she teases. "And you'd never find out where Miss Vane fits into the game."

 

"Now you're underestimating me," he says. "Miss Vane's involvement is obvious, she's replacing your Kate. Like John for me, we both need assistants."  
  
Shot in the dark, but he can't be made to feel like he hasn't worked things out.

 

She stiffens with surprise at the very idea, at how baldly he has just laid out what she herself has only begun to toy with.  
  
"I don't _need_ anyone."

 

A smirk spreads across his face.  
  
"Of course you don't," he says. "However, you think they make you better."

 

She sees his smirk reflected in the glass, and a look of irritation crosses her face. She turns away from the window and crosses her arms in front of her as she glares at him.  
  
"Now you're just guessing."

 

"I never guess," he replies. He shouldn't enjoy her irritation as much as he does, but that hardly matters.  
  
"She'll accept your proposal, of course," he says. "She's not happy living such a simple life."

 

He's obviously enjoying himself, and that simply makes her more irritated, despite knowing that is exactly what he's enjoying.  
  
"Of course she will," she answers tartly. "I wouldn't have considered her otherwise. And that _was_ a guess."

 

"You can't prove that," he says. "I can, however, prove that she is bored with her life. It's as obvious as the shoes she wears."

 

"You needed to see her shoes?" she asks, tsking. The irritation is still present in her stance, in her voice, but a touch of smug superiority sneaks in, like a blush, the faintest hint of blood in dilating capillaries.  
  
"You didn't figure it out from the fact that she deals in forged artwork?"

 

"A lot of people deal with forged artwork because they enjoy it," he says. "Without the correct evidence, I'd be building bricks without any sort of clay."

 

Her glare fades a touch and a smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, smug and sure. She steps away from the window and towards him, the velvet drapes falling back over the glass with a sigh.  
  
"Now that sounds very much like an excuse, Mr. Holmes," she all but purrs.

 

"I don't need to make excuses," he says, firmly. She steps towards him, he steps towards her until he is standing just over her in height.  
  
The car ahead of theirs is serving food, and he can hear footsteps going past their door.  
  
"Dinner?"

 

Simple height isn't enough to cow her, and the deepening, knowing smirk on her lips as she looks up at him, still utterly herself, standing tall with a spine of steel, tells him this. Not that he hasn't already known it.  
  
She is about to refuse, to say that she isn't hungry, when her stomach protests, twinging and reminding her that it had been nearly a day since she'd eaten. A look of annoyance flickers across her face, and she is about to speak when she is interrupted by a shriek of surprise from outside their car.

 

Sherlock turns his head at the sound. The intonation, the change in pitch, it's not a good sound. It's not the sound of someone surprised to see a friend, or startled by someone else. There's intensity to it, fear.  
  
He turns from the Woman towards the door and pulls it open. A few people are gathered at the end of the car, whispering amongst themselves.  
  
"Someone needs to contact the police." He hears. He buttons his suit and nods to the Woman.

 

She hears the same nuances in the shriek as he does, and her body's protest of need is immediately forgotten. The silken dressing robe she's slipped on swirls around her ankles as she follows him out of the car. She shoots him a look of mild irritation at his nod, but her eyes sweep over the gathering crowd and she instinctively categorizes them.  
  
The woman with curly black hair, her eyes puffed with sleep. Inherited wealth, recently asleep. She wasn't going to be any help.  
  
The redheaded man covering a child's eyes, his fingers speaking of care but also a temper.  
  
A bald man, sniffing coolly at the others, his fingers worrying at his leather belt, his eyes avoiding hers furtively.  
  
Her attention hones in on the redheaded man. "You," she snaps. "Find a porter and have the conductor notify the police." The man jumps, and the child pries at his fingers, eager to see what is being kept from his eyes.  
  
"Let me see!" the boy demands. "I saw it!"

 

Sherlock steps around the child, looking past the crowd into the car. A man, recently deceased. Lips tinged blue, no sign of struggle. Pills litter the floor around him.  
  
"Suicide," the bald man says.  
  
"No," Sherlock says, firmly. "Murder. Obviously. Someone here forced him to take those pills."  
  
He looks back to the Woman. The man in the cabin is the same one they saw with Mycroft's woman in the hotel.

 

She lets him shove his way through the gathering crowd first, and slips in in the wake of confusion he leaves behind. This is, after all, a murder scene, and his domain more than hers (for the moment). Never mind that she feels a bit unsteady on her feet, and the thought of having to shove through the gawking individuals on a swaying train did not sit well with her.  
  
The single glance she takes of the dead man's face is enough for her to recognize him. The police officer with a penchant for seeing ghosts. Her lips thin. " _Go_ ," she snaps at the redheaded man and his too-eager child. The man blinks and she gestures for the door with an impatient, imperious hand.  
  
She prods one of the scattered pills, a coated liquid-filled capsule, with a toe. "One of our mutual friends tidying up?" she says quietly, her voice pitched for his ears alone. She raised her voice louder then, for the rest. "They look like over-the-counter pills."  
  
Doctored perhaps, their insides replaced with poison, or scattered about in the man's flailing. Or something else entirely.

 

"They probably are," Sherlock says, stepping into the scene. He gestures. "But look what's missing," he says. He turns back to the Woman. " _Look._ "  
  
She's clever. When they first met, he said 'moderately clever', but he has long since learned that folly.

 

He challenges her. He's the only person in the world who does.  
  
Her brow furrows as she looks around the train car. The gentle motion of the train makes the minute placement of pills, the fall of a pen, unreliable signs. She kneels, ignoring the swaying dizziness that washes over her for a moment, and picks up one of the pills.  
  
"Not enough wrappers," she murmurs. "Not for the number of pills on the ground." She rolls the pill around in her palm, and raises an eyebrow as a drop of liquid bubbles out of the pill and into her palm. She presses the capsule again, and another droplet of mysterious liquid seeps out of the pill. She raises an eyebrow and holds out her hand to him.

 

He nods, as though he were expecting such a reaction from the pill. Quick-acting, toyed with. He nods to the victim.  
  
"Wrappers and what else?" he asks. "What would a suicide victim use?"

 

She shoots him a look that would have been one of pure irritation if not for the speculative gleam in her eyes, the slight tug at the corner of her mouth that gives away just how amused she is by the game even as she is annoyed by his prompting.  
  
The bystanders fade from her awareness as she regains her equilibrium and rises back to her full height. "Don't tell me you're talking about the lack of alcohol or a note," she informs him, walking into the the little connected lavatory to take a square of tissue for the wayward pill and to wipe away the traces of mysterious liquid on her palm.  
  
"Because _those_ were obvious."

 

" _Water_ ," Sherlock says. "There's no glass of water. Nothing to take this plethora of pills with. No cup, no trace. Nothing."  
  
A brief pause. "And yes, it is obvious. As for the killer...less so. This was premeditated, but it wasn't one of our friends."

 

The tug at her mouth becomes the twitch of a hidden smile at the brief pause before his continued answer. She circles the train car briefly, carefully skirting the furnishings, taking in the state of the man's belongings when a sparkle catches her eye, a glint on the carpet nearly hidden at the edge of the wardrobe.  
  
"Is that knowledge supposed to be relief or warning?"

 

"A bit of both," Sherlock says. "Though having Moran here might be interesting, it would be less likely to end well. And Mycroft---well, let's not insult him by saying this poor excuse for a suicide scene could be his."  
  
Sherlock stands. Steps over and shuts the door. The onlookers will begin to be a problem if he doesn't have another few uninterrupted minutes.  
  
"There are ten people on the register for this train tonight, apart from our victim and ourselves," he says. "It's one of the reasons I selected it. Less likely for someone to slip in and follow us."

 

"Manifests lie," she says, leaning down again, this time bracing herself with a hand against the wardrobe to ward against another loss of balance. Her voice is distracted as she reaches for the glint that had caught her eye, and her fingers probe the carpet carefully.  
  
Ah.  
  
Her fingers close on the object in question, and she asks, "How many of the ones on your register are women?"

 

"Four," he says, without hesitation. She's clearly found something that points their potential murderer out as a woman. No use in asking what she's found, she will show him.  
  
It's part of what he enjoys about this arrangement between them. She won't hoard her mysteries, he knows he'll get enough of her in time. He tilts his head somewhat at the way she braces her hand against the wardrobe. Balance loss. For a woman used to six-inch Louboutins, her problem with balance is surprising.

 

The wave of lightheadedness that had threatened her earlier does not return, but Irene is cautious still as she rises, rolling the gem between her fingers thoughtfully. "You're looking for a woman with pierced ears," she says, turning back to him. She tries to recall the last time she'd eaten, a quick bite grabbed in Vienna before the Hunter's Ball. Apparently not enough. That was irritating.

"Traveling with a wealthy companion, but not wealthy herself. A schoolteacher, maybe. Missing a gem in her earring."

 

"No," Sherlock says. "Clever enough to plan this murder, to make it look like a suicide and set it miles away from the nearest police officer, but not clever enough to realize she'd lost an earring?"  
  
Unless she was cocky, overconfident. He'd need to interview the people on the train.  
  
"There's a schoolteacher in compartment 7C," he says. "Italian, teaches primary school part-time."

 

"Not taking the opportunity to remind me about the dangers of over confidence?" she asks. The gem is a fake, glass, obvious by the minute chip against one of the facets (no doubt the chip that worked it free from its setting), and she examines it for a few more seconds before stretching out her hand to offer it to him.  
  
She doubted he could figure out more from it than she already had. She nodded towards the body. "He knew her. Or was extraordinarily optimistic about his odds in her company."

 

"No need," he says, looking at her hand and at the gem. Glass, it appears, worked from a princess cut setting, which is inappropriate for the gem's style. Owned about six years, polished twelve times. Liked, but not enough to clean it all that regularly.

"Optimistic," he repeats, not bothering to take the gem from her as he leans over the body. "Are you referring to his new underwear?"

 

She hadn't noticed the dead man's new boxers, though now that she looks again, it is obvious. But she doesn't tell him that; he was, after all, insufferable when he was smug.  
  
"And the aftershave," she answers. "Recently applied, after an evening shave. Can't you smell it?"  
  
It seems obvious to her, the sharp scent in the air.

 

It takes him a long inhale to get the scent of the aftershave, and he briefly considers Mycroft's warnings that too much cigarette smoking will diminish his olfactory senses.  
  
"Applied about four hours ago," he agrees. "Before the start of the ride, so someone he knew would be here."

 

There is a sharp knock on the door accompanied by a gruff smatter of German. Irene frowns, catching little of the demand; her German was abominable, and she manages to catch maybe a word of it.  
  
"I think our friend actually managed to get the conductor," she says, nodding towards the door. She wonders idly if it's the aftershave is what contributed to her earlier lightheadedness rather than the lack of food, but neither is an appealing explanation for the momentary physical weakness. "Are you going to be Sherlock Holmes again?"

 

"No," Sherlock says, moving up to his feet as well. He looks down at the murder, and considers the few people on the train capable of it. He looks back at the Woman and a slow smile spreads across his face.  
  
"This isn't a job for a consulting detective."  
  
He steps over to the door, pulling it open with one and extending his hand with the other.  
  
"Detective Inspector Lestrade," he introduces, voice already primed with an Austrian accent on his German. "I suppose it's for the best I arrived when I did."


	2. The Distance to Misbehave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A murder on the Orient Express becomes the latest game Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler play. But does the familiarity of the murder victim mean their game is at an end, or is it just the beginning of misbehaviour?

Irene hides a smile at his introduction of himself as Detective Inspector Lestrade, and straightens, pocketing the glass gem without a word.  
  
The man on the other side of the door, his hand frozen as if to knock again, is heavyset, with wide streaks of grey at his temples. With barely a glance, Irene can tell he is the sort who prefers his life defined by others, by the stark black lines of regulation and rules of conduct. Which is more than she can make out of his response to the presence of 'Detective Inspector Lestrade.'  
  
"Interesting choice," she murmurs, switching to French. She'll let _him_ explain to the German conductor currently trying to shoulder his way into the car who she was.

 

Sherlock gestures to the Woman. " _My associate, Miss Flaversheim,_ " he says.  
  
The man's strict regulatory lines say a lot to Sherlock. Bruise, right knuckle. Fist fighter. Bent wedding ring, didn't take it off when fighting. No bruises on his own person, nor evidence of breaks. Probably an abuser, then. Violent tendencies, but not a lot of thinking ahead.  
  
In German, he begins informing the conductor of who he is and why he'll need to interview everyone on the train individually, with the Woman to translate if need be. He would have placed her in a more interesting role, but putting her into too much of a dominating position might make her appear threatening to the conductor. Not something they need.

 

Irene remains where she is, carefully, precisely out of the way but within the conductor's field of vision. Clearly meaning to be present, but without any clues to give away to the conductor by body language what she is here for. Irritation tugs at her mouth as her brow furrows, as she manages to catch a quarter of the explanation.   
  
She hates not understanding; she manages to piece together her alias, though not what explanation Sherlock gives for her presence. Passengers but not what they were to do with them. And on top of it all, perhaps even more galling, is the knowledge that it is nigh impossible for her to piece together enough of the conversation to fool Sherlock.  
  
He is going to be insufferable.  
  
She straightens, and the motion catches the conductor's attention. His stance is slowly relaxing, accepting the new role he is to play, with the Detective Inspector on the scene. It should make him more biddable, though perhaps not by her. Not with the way he eyes her, the way he shifts his weight.  
  
"I hope you didn't tell him you're on prisoner transport," she informs him in French, her tone mild, nondescript.

 

French is international, but he doesn't believe that the conductor speaks it. No, no, from the slight shift in his jaw, Sherlock is certain he doesn't speak it. The Woman's words are out of his understanding and that makes him uncomfortable.  
  
"No, would you prefer that?" he asks in French. Let the conductor be angry. Sherlock isn't about to cater to him, not when there's an actual case to focus on.  
  
Back to German. " _You can bring them into our cabin, yes?_ "

 

"It'd be the only way you'd have me in restraints," she answers, still French, the gleam in her eyes belying the mild tone of her voice. The German conductor's jaw works as he strains to understand, fails, and he answers curtly, nodding with ill grace and turning on his heel.  
  
"What did you tell him?"  
  
There was no point in pretending she understood.

 

His lips twitch into a smirk. Her German isn't good. Excellent. He's more than slightly smug as he starts towards the door.  
  
"Our abusive conductor is going to be filing the passengers into our cabin for interviewing," he says. "As my associate and translator, I'll need you to be present, of course."

 

He is, as she'd predicted, _insufferably_ smug, and Irene glares at his back as she follows, taking one last sweep of the room. A thought occurs to her and she rifles through the dead man's pockets for his mobile. She slips the device into her pocket before she follows him back to their car, firmly shutting the dead man in his cabin.  
  
With the conductor out of earshot, Irene slips back into English. "'Detective Inspector Lestrade' wouldn't be _quite_ that smug," she murmurs to him.

 

"It's for the best that he's still in London, then," Sherlock says, glancing briefly over their shoulders. "Because he also doesn't speak German or have a companion named Miss Flaversheim."  
  
He holds the door to their cabin open.  
  
"We'll begin each conversation in English and go from there, shall we?" he asks, teasing.

 

A hint of a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, and Irene gestures to the service cart in the hall that had been offering food before the shriek of the discovered body interrupted, and asks for tea before slipping past him into their cabin again.  
  
Unlike the now-deceased officer, their space does not smell of astringent aftershave, but there is a hint of sandalwood mixed with tobacco that she finds comforting.  
  
"Keep that up, Mr. Holmes," she warns him without any actual heat in her voice, "And the interview I conduct with be _vastly_ different from what you expect."

 

"Oh, _ja_?" he asks, grinning widely and smugly as he follows.  
  
She'll get her own in Russia, where his Russian isn't even remotely passable. But here, right now, in the midst of a case (something he has desperately longed for), he will take advantage of whatever he might know that the Woman does not. Be it a language or, in this case, a very strong suspicion of a suspect.

 

Once within the confines of their own cabin, Irene moves with more confidence, no longer cautiously present but out of the way, uncertain of her role as Miss Flaversheim. The robe she is wearing returns to the wardrobe, and she straightens her clothes, smoothing her blouse over her shoulders, buttoning the top buttons and squaring her shoulders. Tucking the blouse into her skirt more securely, it takes mere seconds for her to slip on the veneer of the professional.  
  
"Flaversheim," she says, considering the name, the persona that should accompany it. A glance at her reflection in the window, and Irene takes a seat at the desk, reaching into her pocket to pull out the now-dead man's mobile.   
  
"I would say you should have picked a more subtle name," she says conversationally, her attention not on him but on the mobile. "But something tells me you want to see how long it'll take me to trip over my own alias."

 

"I should hope the answer would be 'never'," he says. "After all, it wouldn't be right of you to call yourself by the wrong name."  
  
Though, now that he thinks about it, he's more likely to use the name, and therefore more likely to err when speaking it. He refuses to make an error, of course. Can't have her win by his own folly.  
  
"Your alias is your own, Woman, I simply referred to you as my 'associate'. I'd be cautious of what you select, though, our conductor _likes_ women who do what he says. That being said..."  
  
That being said, Sherlock didn't want to simply let that fact lie.

 

Her focus is on the mobile, on the lock screen that pops up when she touches a button, demanding a four-digit password. The light glinting off the surface shows minute wear in four spots, corresponding to digits. The first is obvious. The others would require experimentation.

"That being said," she repeats, a knowing smirk on her lips. She taps in a code. "He also likes boundaries. As long as he knows I'm out of his reach, caution's rather pointless." Rejected. She taps in a second attempt, and smirks at him.

"Though your concern is touching."

 

"Don't be touched," he says. "I simply don't think we need yet another trip to the hospital. Particularly when we have a delay of a matter of hours until we can leave."  
  
He watches her with the phone, the light shining off of her jawline. She's regained a small amount of the weight she lost back in Hong Kong, but she isn't fully healed yet. No, not until she's back in her heels will he feel less---- _concerned_ about her.  
  
But she is radiant. He has no doubt that she'll get the phone opened in a matter of minutes while he prepares the room, eliminating all signs of Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes from the way things lay.

 

The second attempt is another failure, and she spares him a glance, watching him as he sweeps traces of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler out of view. She expects none of the people they are to interview would notice, but she enjoys his attention to detail.  
  
"Be careful what you insist about being touched," she informs him with a smirk, deliberately misconstruing his words. "You didn't do well with being restrained in London."  
  
She taps a third attempt, and the mobile chirps in triumph at the same moment there is a crisp knock on the door and a matronly voice announcing the tea service that had been ordered.

 

"I didn't order tea, go away," he snaps at the door. There are few things that annoy him as much as someone interrupting a murder case.  
  
It's been far too long since he's had a murder case. A proper brain-twister, with John by his side. John...Sherlock finds himself stopping briefly as he stands. It's been too long since he's looked at John's blog. Has he changed his mind and gotten married? Has he moved on?

 

She pockets the mobile as he snaps at the door and rises from her seat.   
  
"Then it's a good thing the tea isn't for you, now isn't it?" she answers, heading for the door. She ignores him for the moment, soothing the matron at the door in solicitous English, coloured with the barest hint of a cosmopolitan French accent.   
  
She opens the door wider and waves the woman in, gesturing for her to leave the service cart. As the woman passes her, Irene catches a glimpse of her profile, of the earring she wears: a dangling cluster of false emeralds, missing a single gem.

 

Sherlock sees the opposing profile of the woman entering. Older, married unhappily, trying to lose weight but with a sore knee. Owned a cat that recently died---no, she had to put it down---and with expensive tastes in shoes.  
  
Altogether uninteresting. He looks away, focusing on the case.  
  
"You knew the man in the cabin, I assume," he asks the matron. "The one they found."

 

The matron clucks as she enters, maneuvering her cart with an unexpected agility despite her frame and age. Her answer is almost unintelligible between the thick Swedish accent and the clinks of tray and china as she sets tea and sandwiches and china on the desk.   
  
"That boy? Yes, the poor dear. Takes the train every few months to Copenhagen." Without stopping for breath, she chivies Irene towards the seat at the desk. "Sit, dearie. You're in need of a hot drink if I've ever seen anyone needing a hot drink. And some food. You're skin and bones, child."  
  
Irene just stares at her, biddable in her momentary surprise, but the sprigs of annoyance will no doubt sprout.

 

When the matron turns to the Woman, her earring comes into view, gem missing. He raises an eyebrow and glances to the Woman, certain she has seen what he has.  
  
"We've just seen a murdered man," Sherlock says. "I imagine Miss Flaversheim has no appetite until his killer is caught."

 

She nods, minutely, at his raised eyebrow and sits as the matron instructs. "On the contrary," she answers crisply, giving the matron a polite smile and reaching for the teacup the woman has set down. She does not bother hiding the smugness in her tone that she knew only he would hear.  
  
"The Detective Inspector forgets that some of us aren't as used to the grotesque as he is. Tea would be lovely." The woman sniffs, placated, and Irene watches her closely as she empties the rest of the cart onto the desk, muttering all the while about men and their work and their inability to understand what was truly important. Irene smirks inwardly, taking particular note of the woman's nails, the callouses on her hands.

 

Sherlock shoots her a mild scowl. The tea lady isn't interesting. She's unimportant, probably only lost her gem in the room while delivering tea. She is the removal of a clue, not the evidence of one. Why would the Woman want to keep her here?  
  
"We will need the space in order to interview," he says, tone equal parts pathetic and extremely irritated.

 

Irene gives the matron a long-suffering look, and the woman tsks sympathetically. "Thank you, I'll ring when we're finished," Irene says, pointedly pleasant. A pause, and the woman steps away, content to leave the tea service be, before Irene speaks again, as if the thought just occurs to her.   
  
"I don't expect the train services can provide something for motion sickness?" She nods towards Sherlock, giving the matron a second look.  
  
The woman glances over, utterly obvious, and nods as she heads for the door. "I'll see what the conductor can do, dearie. Ring if you need anything."  
  
Irene waits until the woman has taken the cart with her and closed the door to their car before she pours a cup, arching an eyebrow at Sherlock as she does.

 

"Feeling ill?" he asks without any sort of sympathy. Asks, because she has shown no outward sign of this, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.   
  
There is a knock to the cabin. Ah, excellent. Finally someone with a murder and suspects. A murder for him. For them.

 

"Curious whether your suspect brought her drugs with her or if she used what would have been available on board. The latter speaks to a better knowledge of the train service," she corrects, taking a sip of the tea. It soothes her, eases the tension with which she'd held herself since her moment of light-headedness in the murdered man's cabin.  
  
Another sip. Another knock on the door. "One minute please," she says, raising her voice, the faint French accent slipping back into her voice like a well-worn coat. She sets her teacup down with the barest clink of china as Irene Adler and rises as Miss Flaversheim, warm and professional, to get the door. "The inspector will be with you in a moment."

 

A woman Sherlock invented on a whim, and somehow the Woman has created her completely. He sees in her a different person, not just the accent, but the warmth and the smile. He would have her right now, if it didn't mean stepping away from the case.  
  
"Thank you, Miss Flaversheim," he says. He almost stumbles over the name. Almost. He doesn't bother trying to become Lestrade, he simply becomes a more professional version of himself. Cases make things more difficult, make aliases harder to hold onto for long periods of time.

 

At the door is a nervous young woman, no older than ninteen, by Irene's guess, if she were to be generous, and Irene steps back, gesturing the girl to a seat. Her nails are cut (chewed) to the quick, but clean, though the hunch of her shoulders tells Irene she is not used to money, did not expect to be on a train as well-appointed as the Orient Express.  
  
"Do you speak English? The Detective Inspector would like to ask some questions," she asks the girl with a touch of warm concern. It is feigned, of course, but she does not mean for it to be real. Anyone who discerned its falseness would put it to her playing the good cop to Sherlock's bad. She glances over at him, acknowledging him to the girl with a nod.  
  
" _Or would French be easier?_ "

 

Sherlock was about to speak French, by the girl's taste in clothing and her obvious origins, but the Woman has beaten him to it. He stands back, watching her carefully. Watching the girl interact with the Woman, and watching the Woman manipulate the girl.  
  
The girl looks up, obviously more comfortable in her mother tongue.  
  
" _What sort of questions?_ " the girl asks.  
  
Is it Christmas, he wonders? From a murder case to watching the Woman manipulate, it feels like Christmas.

 

Irene pulls the deceased man's mobile out of her pocket and punches in the key code. It takes a few moments, but she pulls up a photograph of the dead man, a self-portrait, taken recently, judging by the haircut, no more than three or four days prior. " _Have you ever seen this man before?_ " she asks, setting the mobile down in front of the girl.  
  
The girl bends her head over the photo, observing, and it gives Irene a moment to look up, to catch Sherlock watching her interact with the girl. A smile plays at the corner of her lips, and she arches an eyebrow at him, a wordless challenge, invitation, maybe something in between.

 

The girl looks at the picture and sniffs. Disinterest? No, a cold. She unpacks a small, used tissue from her pocket and dabs at her nose before replacing it.  
  
" _Also,_ " Sherlock adds, making his voice just a shade gruffer, a shade more like Lestrade himself, when he's interrogating (only less of a bumbling fool, mind). " _Just remember that we know you were in his cabin earlier this evening._ "  
  
The girl's eyebrows go up. " _How---_ "  
  
He gestures to her. " _You've had this cold for the last few hours. The napkin our mutual acquaintance offered you, which you kept in your pocket, is the kind offered at a very specific hotel in Vienna. Not one you could have afforded to stay in."_

 

Her smile threatens to grow at his interruption, and Irene smooths it away, forces it back to the warm professionalism of the translator, with a calculated touch of irritation. She tsks at Sherlock, though she does not bother hiding the glint of amusement in her eyes at his antics, before turning back to the girl, setting another china cup on the table and pouring the girl a cup.  
  
" _You'll have to excuse the detective's rudeness_ ," she says to the girl, picking up her own half-drunk cup and taking a sip. The gesture is an invitation for the girl to take the other, to put her at ease. Irene furthers it by picking up a small tea sandwich from the tray and nibbling it.   
  
She tells herself that it is because she is playing the part, not because she needs to eat, she isn't hungry.  
  
" _He gets carried away. What do you know about this man?_ "  
  
The girl shook her head, and pushed the mobile away, as if it were a viper. " _Yes, I went to his cabin. He paid for my ticket on this train. He told me there would be a way for me to make money here. That wealthy men cannot handle their own children._ "

 

Sherlock straightens, no longer nonchalantly leaning against the wall. " _Did he tell you what he wanted you to do?_ "  
  
He takes in the girl's posture, her obvious disgust with the photograph on the phone. It could be a sexual reference, he thinks, but considering the man had been dallying with Mycroft's Anthea only hours prior, that was very unlikely. Even the insatiable must have _some_ time to focus on their work.  
  
And he was a police officer. Why travel here, now?  
  
The phone in the Woman's hand dings. A text message received.

 

Irene silences the mobile, scoops it back into her pocket without looking. The text can, for the moment, wait. The girl's eyes are wide, bringing to mind that of a cornered animal. The stick and the carrot, the goad and the soothing touch. It amuses her, to suddenly be the one who soothes in response to his rough treatment.   
  
Irene does not touch the girl, but moves from the other side of the desk to where the girl sits. Slow movements, placating. She kneels, so that she can look the girl in the eye. " _He wished for you to be an au pair for a family on the train?_ " she guesses. The girl nods and Irene glances over her shoulder at Sherlock before turning her attention back to the girl. The question is both for her and him " _Do you know which family?_ "

 

The girl looks somewhat confused, and Sherlock speaks again.  
  
" _Would you have been taking care of a boy or a girl?_ " he asks, remembering the children on the roster for this journey.  
  
" _A boy._ "  
  
Sherlock looks at the Woman. There is, of course, only one person it could have been, then. But why would he care? Why purchase an au pair?  
  
" _Why do you hate him?_ " he asks the girl.

 

The girl looks back and forth from Irene to Sherlock, her brow furrowing, as if they are speaking a different language despite the fact that they are speaking one she is familiar with. Irene suspects they appear that way to most people. Their exchanges occur in glances, in touches, in fragments of sentences that convey more information than most people considered conceivable.  
  
" _I don't hate anyone!_ " the girl protests, with the sort of panicked vehemence people talking to the police sometimes found themselves caught by. " _Please. The boy's father saw this man, this dead man, and he was very angry. I do not want him to be angry at me._ "

 

" _Saw him?_ " Sherlock demands. " _Everyone has seen each other at some point or the other on this train. What did he say?"_

 

The girl freezes, and it is obvious to Irene that the questions have terrorized her into silence. Swallowing back a sigh, Irene rises, presses the cup of tea into the girl's hands firmly, and bids her to sit and drink her tea for the moment.  
  
The girl obeys, and Irene crosses the cabin to Sherlock, keeping her voice low, quick, reverting to English. "You have a remarkable way of terrifying young women into silence, you realize?" she murmurs, amused.

 

"Which will make talking to her that much easier for you," he replies, voice equally low. "Shall I scowl and act as though you have told me to leave?"  
  
He looks up at her, and there is so much in their communication without any sort of talk actually between them. John Watson would have called this love. Possibly for the best that John Watson is not here.

 

Her smile grows, pleased, though she carefully keeps her expression out of the girl's line of sight. "Be careful, or I'll cut this interview short and have you right here on that desk before the next one," she informs him, her gaze meeting his.  
  
Still, the girl is composing herself, and Irene switches back to French, her tone disapproving, admonishing, her voice pitched louder again, for the girl's benefit. " _Do compose yourself, Detective, or I will have you leave and finish this myself._ "  
  
She turns back to the girl, who has drunk half her tea, and whose shoulders are no longer quite as tense. " _Did you hear the boy's father exchange any words with the man who bought your ticket_?" she asks the girl. The same question, better phrased.

 

Sherlock doesn't smirk, doesn't return any expression to the Woman, as he is facing where the girl is looking. His eyes, however, will tell her a different story. Pupils dilated with interest, face taking on a slight flush. She turns, and he shifts his legs slightly, his trousers uncomfortable.  
  
" _Oh, have it your way,_ " he says with a grumble. " _This is not our division._ "

 

They are best in the details, in the unspoken words and the _just so_ shift of weight to mask reactions. There is the barest impatience to her stance now, to the way she watches the girl.   
  
" _No, madame_ ," the girl answers, shaking her head, the words coming quicker, easier now. " _The father, he saw the man speaking to me, and he got very angry. Told me he no longer needed an au pair. Told me to leave their cabin. I was afraid. I ran. I did not hear what they said to each other. Just voices raised. The boy started to cry. Please, madame. It is all I know._ "  
  
Irene considers the girl's words, nods. And just to continue their fiction, turns to Sherlock and arches an eyebrow, switching back to English. "Is there anything else you want to ask her, Detective Inspector, or can the _mademoiselle_ go back to her seat?"

 

" _Yes, go away,_ " Sherlock says, waving a dismissive hand at the girl.  
  
He pauses, glancing out of the window.  
  
"Why did the boy cry?" he asks the Woman. "He didn't cry at the sight of the corpse, didn't cause any sort of stir at all."

 

The girl sets her teacup down with such haste that she spills the last drops of liquid in the cup, and flees with as much grace as a terrified seeming ninteen year old could manage, that is to say, Irene was impressed she didn't manage to trip over her own legs.

She waits another moment, allows the girl time to race out of earshot down the corridor, and pours herself another cup of tea before answering. "Because he's more afraid of the father's wrath than a dead body," she says, curling her fingers around the thin china cup, letting its warmth seep into her fingertips. She's speculating, but there's confidence in her tone, she'd allow herself nothing less."Or he's trained to cry, to make noise, to cover up the conversation."

 

"A combination of both is more likely," Sherlock replies. "Motive is what we need. And why your man who saw ghosts would be so interested."

He fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it. The girl left faster than expected, he anticipates it will be a few moments until the conductor brings another person in.

"I assume nothing of use came from his mobile?"

 

At the mention of the mobile, Irene reaches for it again and this time checks the errant text message that had come through, scans the history of it. And as she does, a slow, sinful smile spreads across her face, a predatory smile, all red lips and white teeth. She laughs, a low, velvety chuckle, indulging in pleasure at the unexpected opportunities the text had brought.  
  
The text that had been sent previously by the dead man was simple:  
`Last night was fun. See you again?`  
  
The answer in return, that had come simply moments ago, was just as brief, and would have been completely anonymous, if Irene had not known who the man had spent the previous evening with. But she does, and it is utterly obvious.  
`No. Work called. Back in England.`  
  
She does not offer him the phone, instead insisting he come to her. "Quite the opposite," she purrs. "I think it's time for a little misbehaviour, Mr. Holmes."


	3. A Confusion of Murderers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder, misbehaviour, and Mycroft Holmes. Will Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes manage to dance through the increasingly complex game they are playing, or will their continued infatuation trip them up for good?

Sherlock steps over towards her, raising an eyebrow. At first glance, the message seems idiotic, and the Woman's words some sort of childish prank. Then, he remembers who this conversation is with, and suddenly "childish prank" becomes "brilliant misbehaviour" in his mind.  
  
"More than that," he says. "We need to find out what she knows about the two of us. I sincerely doubt her holiday plans involved that hotel."

 

He steps over, and she watches comprehension dawn across his face, setting down her teacup and reaching up to grab his shirt to pull him down to her. "Mmm," she hummed in approval, "I'd say you're improving in your mind reading."

 

He leans into her grip as she pulls him in. He fights back when it's necessary, but he allows himself to enjoy it when it isn't.  
  
"Am I?" he says. "I prefer the term 'deduction'."  
  
He curls his hand around hers, reaching his thumb to press keys on the mobile.

 

He leans into her grip and she allows his hand to curl around hers, to punch in keys. It occurs to her that this is a rare moment, one in which he does not fight her, and she allows him access without making him work for it. Synchronicity.  
  
It softens her smile, but she takes the opportunity to crane her head up, to nip at the curve of his jaw. She had managed not to spill a single drop of the tea the whole time, before looking down at the mobile still in her hand.  
  
"I know you do. I still prefer mine."

 

"If I didn't know you, Woman, I'd say you were _romanticizing_ my abilities," he says. She leans up and nips at his jaw, and he lets out a quiet sigh. Maddening. She's certainly maddening.

He thinks of before. Before, when they were constantly at odds, constantly wondering when they would betray the other, or run from the other. Now, with the end of their journey in sight, fewer things are up for "wondering" about. Fewer things are uncertain. The primary certainty is that they are by each other's side throughout the rest of this.

The only thing left to wonder is when that changed.

 

She scoffs, though there is a pleased little smirk on her lips at his sigh, a smirk that is just as pleased by the warmth of his hand against hers.  
  
"But you do know me well enough to guess that I don't _romanticize_ ," she agrees, sounding smug. "That I'm doing it to be maddening."  
  
She considers the text on the phone, changes a few things, makes them match the previous messages from the dead man except with a single clue that it is not him, and runs her thumb against his. "How many texts do you think it will take, before our friends realize who has the mobile?"

 

"Depends on if Mycroft is holding the phone," he says, not looking away from her, but knowing she'll have placed a clue within the changes to the text. For misbehavior's sake, of course. "She'll take a dozen. He might take two."

 

She considers the idea, looks back up from the phone, and her smile grows to see him still focused on her. There is an easy intimacy here, one she cannot imagine will last. Or maybe it is only here because they know the end is in sight, that every mile the train moves, the closer they get to Stockholm, then to Moscow. The end of their holiday. The end in sight that allows them to indulge in sentiment and intimacy, that promises that this will not last, will not _change_ them.  
  
No more than it already has, but she refuses to think on that.  
  
She catches his lips with hers, all playful teasing sexuality, her finger hovering over the 'send text' button. "He'd hardly stoop to monitoring this sort of idiocy himself, given how she's rebuffed his advances already," she murmurs against his mouth. "I think that gives us a few more opportunities to play before his assistant realizes the game, don't you?"

 

Sherlock wants to disagree, he believes that Mycroft is far more focused on the two of them than even the Woman realizes, but he also _wants_ to agree with her. He wants to play.

"Send it," he murmurs.

 

She wants to remind him that she is the Woman, that she does not _take_ instruction, not even from him, but she isn't terribly interested in fighting him at this moment. She's far more interested in playing _with_ him, in this little cocoon they have spun around themselves for the moment.  
  
Her finger hits the 'send' button, and a notifying chirp sounds as the text floats off into the electronic ether. "I should have made you say please," she murmurs back, setting the mobile back on the desk.

 

"It's not a word I commonly say," he replies. With her, however, he has learned its value. Not merely in a plea, but also as an acknowledgment of a position of power. The power between them fluctuates so frequently, it's difficult to say who would be in the better place to say something like _please_ when making a request.  
  
"Luggage," he says, suddenly. "We need to see our suspect's luggage."

 

She draws back, arching an eyebrow at his sudden change of topic, though she shows no sign of surprise. This too, after all, is something she enjoys. Not just the teasing tension, the desire to show off, to _play_ , but to watch him work, to be _impressed_.  
  
"Hardly difficult to accomplish," she answers, looking thoughtful. "How long will you need?"  
  
Not want, of course. She's willing to give him exactly what he needs but nothing more. Anything more wouldn't be impressive.

 

"Ten minutes," he says. "Maybe twenty."  
  
In reality, he needs no more than five. But as he did on the plane when she provided the distractions then, he wants to see how long she can provide him, now.

 

The thoughtful look becomes shrewd, penetrating, as she focuses on him, the offhand numbers drawing her attention. "Twenty minutes, Mr. Holmes?" she asks, her tone insufferably smug. "Are you losing your touch?"

 

"Not at all," he says. He reaches up a hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. Touch. Just a slight one. His cold fingertips to her warm cheek.  
  
There's a knock at the door and he glances aside.  
  
"I'll be back."

 

"Feign motion sickness, I'll make your excuses," she tells him, knowing it was unnecessary. She had, after all, told the woman who'd brought tea that one of them suffered from motion sickness, and there was every chance the idea of a perceived weakness might make their murderer sloppy.  
  
She nods, her hand reaching up to tuck the strand of hair more securely behind her ear, her fingers brushing against his, before she heads for the door, opening it to reveal the irritable conductor with the father in tow, the boy hovering a few steps behind.  
  
"Thank you. Please, come in," she says to the man, seeming to ignore both boy and conductor.

 

Ah, this man. Sherlock has the desire to snap at him, to demand why he killed the victim. Of course, he has no discernible motive, and the man holds his child in front of himself like a shield. The tears were certainly staged. Fingertips, slightly wrinkled. Soaking in water, then, perhaps to dislodge evidence from his fingernails?  
  
He presses a hand to his abdomen, but makes no outward sign of distress apart from a tightening of his throat muscles. The conductor looks like he's seen this before, someone trying to act the part of "tough". Good.  
  
Once he's exited the cabin, he heads directly for the only empty one on this row.

 

The man nods and half turns, giving the boy instructions not to leave, that papa would be back in a moment. Irene nods, makes the appropriate remarks. She recognizes it, of course. It was the same play the girl had witnessed. The father confronting his potential target, the boy on watch to make noise and obscure sound if necessary.  
  
She spares a glance for the boy, confirms her hypothesis by the sharp look in his watery eyes, and waves the man into the cabin proper, shutting the door tight behind her.  
  
Irene makes the proper excuses, the sort Miss Flaversheim, translator to the brusque police inspector, would make. She is courteous, making small talk, just flirtatious enough to suggest starting the interview to allow the man back to his son. But mostly, it gives her an opportunity to study him. She already knew, at first glance, that there was violence in his fingertips, that he wore his liking of death like old calluses on his hands.

 

Sherlock imagines that the man will keep the boy close, for protection. He won't hurt the Woman, not outright. She won't drink her tea after he's entered the cabin, and she won't give him reason to hurt her.  
  
Who is he kidding? Himself, honestly. The Woman is going to give the man every reason to hurt her. She is, however, significantly smarter than the poisoning victim.  
  
He tugs one of the cases down and opens it. A few shirts, a few pairs of trousers. Glasses. He turns the trousers over. Slight wear on the right side (right handed), potential placement for a phone clip, pager, or holster. He photographs this with his phone. He puts the case away and leans down to the spare set of shoes on the floor. These belong to the boy. Wear on the right side, shoes less than six months old. Extensive cleaning with bleach. He takes another photograph.

 

The man is nervous, edgy, his jaw muscles thick with tension but hiding it well. Practiced. Irene offers him tea, apologizes for the mess, and asks just-pointed-enough questions. She pours him a cup, refreshes her own, and turns away, making some excuse to find a pad of paper to record his answers. And as she does she watches his reflection in the cabin's window.  
  
She can tell he is well trained, not simply practiced, by the way he holds himself. There's a delicacy in the way he drums his fingers against the desk, the way his eyes crinkle at the way she turns from the tea, leaves it unattended. He sees the opportunity. Recognizes it as such.  
  
But he hides it, a thin veneer of politeness, the fiction of the nervous father. He answers her questions, predictably defensive, deadly earnest. She smiles, hears the suppressed accent behind his words, and sits down across from him, dutifully jotting down his answers for the detective.  
  
Violence, training, actor. The pieces were obvious now. She smiles, and rests a hand on his, Miss Flaversheim's professional smile gaining the knife's edge as she leans in, as if to ask him another question, to confirm his travel plans with his son.  
  
Instead, she says lightly, "You should visit the States. Your son would enjoy it. There is a particularly quaint little town in New Mexico called Moriarty."

 

Sherlock lifts up the shirts and inhales. A strange scent clings to them. Not gunpowder, not blood. Formaldehyde.  
  
He lifts another shirt and sees it. A plastic container, holding the scent of formaldehyde strongly to it, he lifts it up and his eyes widen. He doesn't understand the significance, but he knows what he's looking at.  
  
Ears. Someone has removed ears and put them into this container. Presumably the man interviewing the Woman right now. Sherlock lifts his phone and photographs the box before placing it back into the container.

 

Despite the Spider's death, his ghost lingered, and the very mention of the name has a visible effect on the man, an almost indistinguishable widening of the eyes, his fist clenching beneath her hand. Behind his momentary surprise, Irene could see him think, could see the wheels turning in his head.  
  
The choices are obvious. Either to take her at face value, to play out the fiction, to take the suggestion as apropos, or to acknowledge that he had recognized the name. And with every second, the opportunity for the former slips away, until she takes the choice out of his hands again.  
  
"Professional, isn't it? Former, judging by your hands," she says conversationally, her hand still on his. "Is the officer dead because you were paid or because he saw ghosts?"  
  
A part of her counted down the minutes, how long had it been in the interview, in her round of mild polite questions? Six minutes? Seven? Hardly twenty.

 

Sherlock places the suitcase in the rack and steps from the car, glancing back briefly and taking one final photograph of the way the room is laid out. Sometimes the obvious escapes even his eyes until later.  
  
He straightens his suit and starts towards the cabin, back to the Woman. How long has he been? Four? Five minutes? He told her twenty, but now he wasn't running the risk. _She is fine,_ he tells himself calmly. _Fine._  
  
As he turns down the aisle, he sees the little boy, standing outside of the room. Once he sees Sherlock, the boy starts crying.

 

The boy begins to cry, and the man jerks in surprise. "Ah, he saw ghosts then," Irene purrs. The boy's cry is a warning, one that she can decode as well as the man, the half-second between the cry and his reaction telling her that he is out of practice. That he hid what he did, for the most part.  
  
And the boy's cry could only mean that he'd seen the detective in question, that he'd seen Sherlock, and that allows her to push, to be reckless in playing the game.  
  
It isn't that she is reassured by the knowledge of his nearness, of course. Simply insurance.  
  
"He recognized you," she continues, rising from her seat, letting go of his hand, deliberately turning her back to him. "So you panicked. Foolish, pet, very foolish."

 

"They've already heard you, you can stop now."  
  
Sherlock doesn't put on his slightly accented Lestrade voice. He doesn't raise his voice. He simply stands there, addressing the child.  
  
"I have never liked children, as a rule," he says. "However, your childhood is being slighted by your father, turning you into a machine to cry and coo when he needs a distraction or an invitation or a warning." The last word is said firmly, to give the child an understanding that Sherlock knows what he is doing and why.  
  
Sherlock takes a step towards the boy. "Explain to me why you shouldn't be charged as an accomplice for murder?"  
  
The boy's crying suddenly stops. He has never been asked this before, that much is obvious. That means that the man and his son have never been confronted before.

 

The boy's crying stops suddenly, and Irene turns back to the man, catching him half-risen. She arches an eyebrow, hiding her own surprise behind a challenging look.  
  
"Something's stopped the boy," she tells him, crossing her arms, a slow cat-like smile on her lips. "The question is, is he just a disposable pawn to be discarded so you can keep your secret, or are you actually interested in his welfare." She brushes past him, towards the door, pitching her voice enough to be caught through the cabin door. "I'm rather interested. His chin is similar enough to yours that he might actually be blood."

 

Sherlock kneels down, still staying a comfortable enough distance away from the boy that he can't be attacked. Not that he truly expects the boy to attack him. He's thin and undernourished, though Sherlock imagines that is intentional. Make the boy look younger, more frightened than he actually is.  
  
"Do you even understand the concept of murder?" he asks, surprised at his own interest.  
  
He can hear the Woman's voice inside of the door. The man has obviously noticed that the crying has stopped.  
  
"If he's your father, he should have told you what you were doing," he tells the boy.

 

Their murderer straightens at the implication, and his hand curls into a fist, tension in every finger. He clenches his hand, she glances down, back up at his face. The barest nod.  
  
"Actually your son then. The reason you left your previous existence, I'd wager. The mother?"  
  
The man still oscillated between anger and shock, but for the moment shock seems to win out and he nods. "Dead," he confirms. "She tried to leave with him. I didn't go with her."  
  
Irene arches an eyebrow. There was something else there, something she couldn't quite read, not this quickly. Something about the man's answer that was incomplete. That was more than the obvious suggestion, obvious implication of a guilty conscience.  
  
She rests a hand on the door knob, turns it slowly, gestures outside. "Don't try cleaning up after yourself, pet. I don't take kindly to assassination attempts."

 

"You want to survive," Sherlock says. "I imagine you're less important to him than you think you are. After all, why hasn't he come out to check on you, yet? It sounds like he's just talking."  
  
From the snippets Sherlock can hear, he thinks he just heard a confession to murder. He wonders if the boy can hear it.  
  
Sherlock stands, and offers a gloved hand to the boy.  
  
"I'll protect you if you come with me."  
  
The little boy's hand goes into Sherlock's, and Sherlock leads the boy away from the door, before the father or the Woman can join them. He reaches his other hand into his pocket and begins to text the Woman the photographs he took.

 

She eases the door open slowly, but the hall is empty. The father's eyes widen in panic, and he all but dives through said door, scrambling out and down the corridor. Irene frowns; his reaction is unexpected, and thus concerning. But her mobile chirps its announcements and she reaches for it, letting their murderer go.  
  
The photos are unremarkable, glimpses of the man's luggage, cabin... she scrolls through them quickly until she lands on the one of the contents of his luggage, not the ears but the boy's shoes. Her eyes widen as the puzzle pieces that had fallen into place shake loose, fall into place again with this new information, and her fingers fly over the keys.  
  
`Not the father. The boy.`  
  
She curses silently and follows the man down the train.


	4. The Poison Pill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet trip on the fabled Orient Express has become the scene of a murder, with a mafia assassin and a child serial killer on the loose. Will Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler be able to solve the murder and remain a step ahead of Mycroft Holmes, or will they fall to their own insatiable need to solve the puzzle?

Sherlock tucks the phone back into his pocket as they travel down the hallways. He needs somewhere to put the boy, somewhere to keep him safe while he interrogates him. His phone chirps, informing him of a text message, but he doesn't answer it. No, he needs to focus on the boy, let him know that he's safe here.  
  
He turns into an empty cabin, leading the boy. He shuts the door and pulls the curtain. The Woman is safe, so long as Sherlock has the murderer's child. He gestures for the boy to sit.  
  
"Your father hasn't explained what it is that he does," Sherlock says. "He just forces you to be part of it."  
  
The boy says nothing, looking down at his boot-covered feet.  
  
"He bleaches your shoes after you leave a crime scene," Sherlock adds. "He keeps ears in containers within your luggage as proof of his kills."  
  
He was surprised he didn't find a spare set of poison in the luggage. Or any other weapons. Hardly important, though.

 

Something almost akin to panic rises in her throat, sharp and sour, as Irene follows the panicked father. If she were being logical, she'd realize there had been mere minutes since the boy had stopped crying, that there could logically only be a few places where Sherlock and the boy would have been able to get to. But this was unlike Niagara Falls. Moran's kidnapping ploy had been unexpected, but Irene knew what the man liked, could predict what he would do.  
  
This, this was a child, with proclivities that had been unnoticed until seconds ago, whose actions were clearly unpredictable. "You didn't kill the man," she says harshly as she catches up to their former suspect, reaching to grab his wrist, to hold tight and dig her fingers into his skin. "It was the boy. Tell me what he's capable of."  
  
She is harsh, demanding, but not afraid.  
  
She refuses to be afraid.

 

"The ears."  
  
Sherlock considers the ears for a moment. Proof of his kills. The Woman and he had decided that the boy's father was guilty, possibly an assassination. But the ears. He thinks back to the body, pulls the image up in his mind. Both ears definitely present. Not something a seasoned assassin would have missed. Not when he had no way of knowing Sherlock Holmes was on the train.  
  
He shifts and turns, pulling his mobile out of his pocket. Human memory has a failed percentile average, but Sherlock's is extraordinary. At the same time, a photograph for confirmation---  
  
The text from the Woman is the first thing he sees.

 

The father babbles. Words. Excuses. Little that was useful. Irene drags him with her as she studies doors. She opens one, disturbs the schoolteacher that they had considered at first. Ignores the woman's surprise.   
  
She continues on, the man still babbling, until she notices the lack of wear on the carpet, the clear sweep of the door, the drawn curtains. Irene grabs the door handle, twists it ruthlessly open, and shoves the father ahead of her into the room, a human shield.  
  
Her eyes sweep the room.

 

Sherlock turns the moment the door opens. The father is there, and then he sees the Woman, immediately behind. She realized what was going on before Sherlock did and she---  
  
There's a sharp pain in his lower calf as the boy stabs a small pocketknife into Sherlock's leg. Lack of extra weapons, the boy had them. Lack of extra poison, the boy took it.   
  
He cries out, but doesn't lose footing.  
  
"What? Was there not enough killing for you?" he demands.

 

His cry draws her attention like a lodestone, but Irene does not loosen her grip, in fact tightening it on the father's wrist until the man gasps in pain. "Drop the knife, boy," she says sharply over the man's gasp. "Or I will pitch your father out this train and drag you behind him."  
  
A second glance at the boy, now that she knows what to _really_ look for, makes things obvious. The look in his eyes, the way he held himself. Removed, not simply by training, but out of habit, out of his own choice. But the act suggested passion. Rashness.  
  
The boy freezes, uncertain. He's never been caught in the act, never been confronted before he'd gotten away with murder. "Drop. The. Knife," Irene repeats. "We know you killed the police officer because he threatened to expose you and your father. The pills in the man's cabin. You swapped them for the ones the serving woman gave him. I also know what your father used to do. For the 'Ndrangheta."  
  
The man breathes in sharply at the name, and the boy looks to his father, obeying when the man gestures for him to step back from Sherlock. The motion only eases Irene's mind minutely, but her grip relaxes fractionally on his wrist.  
  
She chances a glance over to Sherlock then. "Care to step away from the murderous child, Mr. Holmes, or do I have to extend an invitation?"

 

Sherlock does as instructed, moving away from the boy. The moment pressure is applied to his injured leg, he falters, sliding to his knee.  
  
"Ndrangheta," he says. "Italian crime family. Odd, I'd have pegged you two for Russian."  
  
His breathing is only slightly labored. The pain shoots up his thigh. He struggles to ignore it, moving to his feet again.  
  
"Why now?" he demands. "Why rush the murder? You must've known your father would be implicated."

 

She shoves the man to his knees, and even unarmed she is formidable, implacable. The Goddess her clients saw writ large, a thirst for blood and retribution in her words. "Undisciplined, rash, eager to please, to prove his worth to his father," she says, before the boy could. To his credit, the boy had, as instructed, dropped the knife. Irene's attention turns to the father, though her eyes remain on the boy.   
  
"You were going to let him go. Your son had other ideas. Give me the knife and him the antidote, and pray I don't return the favour your boy performed."   
  
She does not turn to look at Sherlock, refuses to, but every line of her body grows tenser with each passing second, her jaw clenches with each slightly laboured breath he takes.

 

Sherlock likes to think of himself as a god. But he isn't. He's not a god. He can't outlast the poison, whatever it is. Now that it's in his bloodstream.  
  
"You have it on your person," he snaps. "It isn't in your things."  
  
The confused expression on the man's face makes Sherlock sneer. Of course. Their little thief. He won't tell them, not for Sherlock's life.  
  
He grabs the knife and plunges it into the man's arm.

 

The boy cries out, and Irene curses as Sherlock plunges the knife into the man's arm. She understands why he acts that way, she understands the risk he takes, but it does not stop the way her heart races, the way she finds herself momentarily unable to breathe.  
  
She is afraid, and she hates it.  
  
She kicks the man over, lets go of him, and instead swoops in to catch the boy before he rushes to his father. He fights her tooth and nail, attempting first to bite her, then scratching at her arms when she holds him tight. His nails drag along the slow-fading scar along her forearm, her souvenir of Las Vegas, but Irene swallows back the pain.  
  
The man tries to pull out the knife, and it takes him two tries. Irene feels a vindictive bit of pleasure when his first attempt dug the knife deeper into his arm, but as his breathing grows laboured, she wonders if it will be too late, that they've underestimated the man's self-preservation. The boy attempts to bite her again, and Irene lands a blow to the back of his head. Lighter than she'd have used for a full-grown man, but the boy still drops like a sack of bricks, and she lets him fall to the floor without a care.  
  
"The antidote, pet. Or are you going to spite us both. No doubt there's enough left on that knife to make sure the boy goes too," she says coldly, approaching. The man scrambles for his pockets, his fingers fumbling, until he pulls out an aspirin bottle.

 

Sherlock, despite the weakness in his body, manages to smirk at the Woman. Her dominatrix coming out yet again. There is no woman in the world who could do what she does. Nor would he want anyone else in the world to try.  
  
"I'll inform the conductor of our conclusions," Sherlock says, reaching out to snatch the aspirin bottle away. "I imagine he'll enjoy destroying another family."

 

"You're hardly in any state to make a convincing argument at the moment," she says, watching the struggling man carefully as he reached feebly for the bottle in Sherlock's hands. She tsks, and took a step over, her foot resting on his wrist.  
  
She gestured to Sherlock, forcing her voice to cool detachment. "Antidote first, shall we?"

 

He offers her the bottle, as though this were his objective all along. It had nothing to do with the child-proof lock on it, and his knowledge that he would not be able to open it himself.  
  
The conductor will not listen to the Woman, but she is right. He is in no condition to talk to the man himself. He won't tell her that she's right, of course.  
  
"Restraints."

 

"Once he and I come to an understanding," she tells Sherlock.  
  
She takes the bottle from him, her fingers lingering against his for just a moment before she pries open the cap. His fingers feel cold against hers, but that merely earns the man beneath her foot tightening pressure on his wrist. He groans, and she shakes the now-open bottle, seeing a small collection of red gel tablets within. Hardly run of the mill aspirin. Good.  
  
She shakes out a pair of pills, and the man's eyes follow her fingers like a viper. "If the antidote works on him, you'll get yours, pet," she tells the man, their former mafia assassin. She hands Sherlock the open bottle and holds the two ruby red pills between her fingers. "If it doesn't, well, I don't suppose I have to tell you how your tools work, do I?"

 

"It takes time," the boy pipes up, having recovered quickly from the initial blow. Children were, unfortunately, resilient in that sense. "Hours. Father will be dead long before you know it works for certain." His voice is cool, collected. He feels _confident_ , and this makes Sherlock excessively irritated.  
  
"Give him four. The same for Father."  
  
Sherlock swallows. His throat feels dry. "A quick death, but a slow recovery," he says.

 

The boy's voice is unexpected, and Irene wonders just how much he feigns. He's still an unknown quantity, and dangerous.  
  
The man's sudden relaxation beneath her foot leads Irene to believe the boy is telling the truth; after all, he had little enough reason to lie, and Irene nods. "There's no reason for you to lie, is there?" she tells the boy. They all know the answer, but she says it all the same. "So you're telling us the truth to save your own skin. And your father's. That's respectable enough."  
  
Over her shoulder, she adds, "The sooner you begin that slow recover, the better, Mr. Holmes. You'd make a very unattractive corpse in your current state."

 

Sherlock swallows the capsules. It takes some effort, but he is more than accustomed to taking things when his body is not prepared for them.

"I hope you're prepared to face trial for this," Sherlock says to the boy. "Because you have been caught."

 

Some small tension leeches out of her when he takes the capsules, and Irene gestures for the bottle back. The man beneath her heel makes a frantic gesture, and Irene rolls her eyes, dropping the two capsules in her hand into his grasping one. The other two will have to come from the bottle, but the presence of half his antidote stills the man's panic, at least momentarily.  
  
The boy blinks, wide-eyed, though he is clearly trying to be as stoic as he believes he should be. No doubt the concept of being caught, of being put on trial, is a new one to him. "You should have gone to New Mexico," Irene says to the man, releasing his wrist, both feet back on the ground. "But he's right, the two of you are best caught. Too unpredictable to be of any use."  
  
She glances at Sherlock again. "Shall I ring for the conductor for you to do the honours?"

 

Predictable. Sherlock likes that insult for the two of them. He attempts to straighten, but the pain in his legs is too great. How...unfortunate. He simply offers her a nod.  
  
"You," he says.  
  
There's something else, he thinks. Something missing. He can't work it out, not over the throbbing pain in his legs, and how his mind feels like it's splitting in two.

 

Her brow furrows in response; he is, after all, rarely _that_ quiet, or agreeable. Irene nods, pushing the momentary thought away that it might have been too late, and takes the bottle with the antidote in it from Sherlock, though she does not give it to the man yet.  
  
She nods, keeping an eye on the boy, and reaches over to the telephone panel mounted on the cabin wall. She slips the French back on like a coat, the alias of the inspector's assistant, " _The detective inspector wishes to speak to the conductor._ "  
  
The man on the other end pauses, fumbles his words for a moment, clearly Austrian, his French rusty but serviceable, and tells them the conductor would be by shortly. Irene sets the phone back on the hook and walks over to the boy.   
  
"Keep your hands open so I can see them, dear. Wrists together. You're going to sit here and do exactly as I tell you or your father doesn't get the rest." She gives Sherlock a look. "Can you manage to lend me your belt or do I have to come get it myself?"

 

"Hardly the time, Woman," he says, a slight smirk appearing on his lips. He straightens again, and the rush of blood to his legs from his head makes him dizzy. Too dizzy to undo his belt, at first, and then he focuses, strains himself to remove the belt and hand it her way.  
  
He considers himself better than the things that throw him down. He should be able to face this through sheer force of will, but he can't. His vision is swimming.  
  
"The conductor won't believe you," the boy says, voice still unnervingly calm. "Father befriends all of the authority before we begin. And in the end, you are the only one healthy here, Miss. You will appear more guilty."

 

His answer earns him the barest hint of a smile, the slightest easing of tension in her jaw. It is hardly his best retort, but at the moment she expects it is better than silence. "And I'm in no mood to carry you," she retorts. "So indulge me."  
  
She takes the belt from him and begins to strap the eerily calm boy to the chair. "He won't have to believe me," she informs him. "Your father will confess to everything." A pause, and she pulls the belt tight against the boy's arms. His father tried to protest, and Irene arched an eyebrow at the poisoned man. She doesn't have to say more, his eyes are still riveted to the pill bottle in her hands.   
  
He coughs again, tries to speak, fails, and nods, once.

 

Sherlock is aware of how easily it could go wrong. He could say he was under duress, he could say any number of things. And it is the boy who is the criminal in this case, not the man. And yet...  
  
"We solved the case," Sherlock says. That is, in the end, what matters. He leans heavily against the door frame as the conductor appears, looking at the man on the floor and the boy being tied up.  
  
Sherlock's accent slips back where it should be. DI Lestrade is not injured, not poisoned, not failing at holding it together.  
  
"We've uncovered your killers," he says.

 

The conductor frowns, taking in the tableau before him, his jaw moving as he tries to understand what has happened, as he tries to figure out what is going on. Using the boy to block her view, Irene palms two of the pills from the bottle, the last of the mafia assassin's dose of antidote, and slips the bottle itself into her pocket.   
  
She schools her expression to tenseness, a sickened frown on her lips, her brow furrowed as if distressed. "You'll find proof in the man's luggage," she says meekly, sounding falsely ill, as if what she'd seen had disturbed her. It relaxes the conductor; this is the place he prefers to see his women, submissive, deferential. She plays to him. "Trophies, the detective inspector said they were." She secures the boy, rises, begins to cross the room.  
  
As she nears the poisoned man, his eyes widen in panic at the idea that she would leave him without the rest of his antidote, and Irene meets Sherlock's eye and feigns a fall, a faint, drawing on the memory of her earlier vertigo.   
  
It allows her to drop the pills near their poisoner's father. Allows him to scramble for them, if he were even half as clever as he thought.

 

Sherlock moves to assist her, as a gentleman would, but his legs feel like they'll give out, leaving him in a half-lurch towards her. The conductor moves to her side.  
  
"I can get Miss Flaversheim to her room," he says, trying to sound less out-of-breath than he feels.  
  
He imagines she will end up being his leaning post far more than he will for her.

 

He moves for her and Irene curses mentally at him as she scrambles to pick herself up without giving away her own false illness. There was, after all, no reason the detective inspector would _need_ to catch his assistant, that his facade could have him coolly watching as she were ill as easily. But the reaction is purely Sherlock Holmes and his own stubborn obstinacy, and she rises to fall against him, though she is the one to set her heels, to dig her feet in.   
  
It is enough, she thinks, that they have the antidote, that the conductor will see the trophies in the man's luggage. That and the implicit threat that they could reveal the man's location to his former colleagues with the 'Ndrangheta should keep him biddable long enough.  
  
"If you'll excuse me, sir," she says to the conductor, pretending to lean heavily against Sherlock, though in reality her arm goes around his waist, hoisting him up. "I believe I need a bit of rest."  
  
Their conductor frowns, scrutinizes her, and Irene finds herself holding her breath.

 

Sherlock goes to German. " _Your attention needs to be on the prisoners,_ " he instructs him.  
  
He feels the Woman's arm around his waist, and he eases himself slightly into her. He wants to be certain, but he's ill. Too ill to continue this facade anymore. He steps towards the door with the Woman, hoping her acting and their position will keep his illness hidden.

 

The amount he leans against her is alarming, and Irene's mind flashes back to Nassau to his collapse on their flight in. Her hand tightens against his waist unconsciously as she all but drags him out, all the while feigning that it was the other way around.   
  
The conductor turns his attention back to their prisoners, reaching for the phone to call for more help as they leave the car. "The detective inspector could have just let his assistant faint," she tells him quietly, straightening and more fully pulling him with her once they were out of sight of the conductor. " _He_ had no need to be a gentleman about things."

 

"And it would have been alarming had I not reacted at all," he replies, and his words are slightly slurred. She's holding most of his weight, and he's less embarrassed and more annoyed by the situation. She shouldn't be holding him at all. He should be able to stand on his own.  
  
"The father will be doing as badly," he warns. "The conductor might not realize it is his own work..."

 

His words are slurred, and she hastens her pace, ignoring the beginning of a twinge in her still-healing leg. "The conductor is an idiot who enjoys being in a position of authority. He'll do what you told him because it'll make him look clever to the rest of the crew."  
  
Their cabin is within sight, its door slightly ajar from when she'd rushed out, and Irene takes her eyes off the corridor long enough to look at him. "The detective inspector could have been dismissive," she reminds him, purposely goading him. "Hardly professional for his assistant to be ill at the very sight of a crime scene."

 

He turns his head to look at the Woman, his expression incredulous. She's really not going to let this go, is she? That's fine, he doesn't need her to let it go. He can finish it.  
  
"Very well, I'll make certain to ignore you the next time you appear even slightly injured," he replies. "Even if it's out of character."  
  
He doesn't believe the boy was lying about the antidote, but he certainly doesn't feel well. His leg aches, his stomach churns, and by the time they get to the door, he finds himself reaching out for the frame to brace himself before they step inside.

 

His incredulous look heartens her for a moment, reassures her that the poison and its antidote has not done as much as damage as she has feared. But then he reaches for the door frame, and the momentary hope chills down her spine.  
  
"You're slurring your words," she says sharply, not waiting for him to steady himself. The knife wound in his leg still needed to be bandaged, and anything else that needed to be done would be significantly easier if he weren't flailing about under his own power. "Leg wound. Any blurred vision?"

 

"Yes," he says. "Completely blurred in the right eye, going in the left." He thinks his words are far less clear than they sound in his mind.  
  
His leg doesn't hurt, but he knows that his trousers are wet with blood. The poison affects him far more than the wound. It's what made it so effective for the boy. It should've been obvious, considering how strong the father clearly was. He wants to tell the Woman this, but he can't. He slides down next to the seat.


	5. The Lessons Pain Teach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the mafia assassin's poison running through his veins, Sherlock Holmes can do nothing but wait it out as the antidote takes its course. Does Irene Adler take advantage of his vulnerability or have they come too far for such petty concerns?

He slides down and, despite the fact that she has braced herself, the motion catches Irene unawares, and she swallows back a sound as he nearly drags her down with him, sending another throbbing twinge down her own still-healing injury.  
  
She curses and catches herself on the seat. "You have an uncanny talent for making things difficult," she tells him, forcing irritation into her voice instead of concern, as she tries to pull him back up. "Come along, Mr. Holmes. I am not going to carry you the last two feet to the bed."

 

He waves a hand in her direction. "Bring it down here," he says. He wanted to say something more clever, but it didn't come out at all.  
  
"I'm not well," he says.

 

She laughs, once, and there is a brittle edge of hysterics in it, a broken-glass edge of forced down panic at the understatement, at the fact that he is _saying_ it at all.  
  
"I've noticed." She lets go of him, steps back, as if the physical distance would lend her perspective she does not have. "I can feed the conductor a story of the detective inspector being too tired to entertain visitors if he comes by and you're in bed. There's no believable story I can feed him if you're in a seeming drunken stupor on the ground."

 

He opens his eyes and glares at her.  
  
"Drunken stupor," he says. He lifts his hand and struggles to sit up. He will not give in to this, will not give in to feeling unwell. He nearly died from the infection in his shoulder before. This is significantly different. This is just a paralytic. He can beat this.  
  
"All right. All right."

 

She should feel triumphant, of course, for having won, for having manipulated him, but all she feels is relief that he responds at all, that he agrees. He struggles to sit up, and she ducks, slips his arm around her shoulder, and tries to force him to his feet.  
  
"You weren't nearly this agreeable when _I_ drugged you," she says, ignoring the twinge in her own injured leg as she tries to pull him up. "Or was that simply because it was me?"

 

"Would you rather I struggled?" he says. Or, at least, he tries to say. It comes out closer to _Food yoooou raaaaher---_  
  
Embarrassing.

 

She'd preferred if he struggled, if he were irritable and irritating as she pulled him towards the bed. There are many times when his height is not a hindrance, when her force of personality is strong enough to compensate for their differences in stature, but this is not one of them, and she is breathing heavily by the time they cross the two feet to the bed built in to the side of the cabin.  
  
"I'd rather you hadn't gotten yourself poisoned," she informs him tartly as she eased him against the bed, hoping he had enough control not to hurt himself as he fell over onto it. "It was sloppy. Legs up, now."

 

"Better me than you," he manages. He nods to her leg, still healing. His shoulder ached, but he supposed it always would. Years of physical therapy and some help from John when he got back to London. London. It's so close now. If he reaches out, it feels like he can touch it.  
  
Go to London, leave the Woman.  
  
"The pills aren't digesting fast enough," he theorizes.

 

"It wouldn't have happened. _I_ realized it was the boy," she reminds him, resting a hand on his uninjured shoulder and pushing him to lie back. The gesture is forceful, unwilling to be shrugged off, but there is a gentleness, a deliberate care to it that she would deny if pressed.  
  
"They aren't meant to digest quickly," she continues, frowning as she studies him. "Digest slowly, let the poison continue working, fear into his victims, extract information if necessary. It's the way his old employers worked."  
  
She frowns, cutting off his pants would be the most expedient, but it would lead to questions. Far more than if they were just left with the laundry. She begins undoing his waistband with quick, efficient fingers.

 

"I'm not afraid," he lies. She pushes him back and he lands against the mattress, limp.  
  
She did work it out. She's far from stupid, his Woman. No. No, that is a stupid thought. She is not his. She will never be his, because she will never be possessed by anyone but herself. The Woman suits her far better. She unworks his trousers and he lays there, feeling utterly helpless.  
  
"Torture without the effort, though. Efficient."

 

She eases his trousers off his hips, and refuses to think of how many times she's repeated that particular action, and how this is utterly different, when he is lying limp and helpless on the bed. "Isn't that supposed to be my opinion?" she asks, biting her lip as she tries to ease the leg of his trousers over the wound without disturbing it.  
  
"You're hardly supposed to be the budding criminal mastermind in this room."

 

"Just because I don't intend to use it doesn't mean I can't appreciate it," he says. He goes for firmness, but his words are still slurred, like his mouth is full of marbles.  
  
There is nothing sexual in the way she's removing his trousers. It's almost caring, like she's a mother or a nurse. Not that he could see her as either, mind. He tries to accommodate her, by lifting his leg, but he finds the muscles are utterly loose. Soft, unwilling to tense.

 

She finds herself judging his slurring, trying to gauge whether it is better or worse than it had been before. She hates that he does this to her, that she is so thoroughly _concerned_ , that this is a shadow of what she'd felt in Nassau.  
  
"I'll admit, you're better at staying still than the last man I had to cut the trousers off of," she says. It is meant to distract herself as much as him. Otherwise she would never tell him about her old life, or her new, or anything at all about herself. She was the mystery, after all.  
  
"I would have thought the restraints would have been better than drugs, for that."

 

He wants to laugh at that, but he doesn't. He just sits there, unable to move but only able to talk. To talk, and to feel pain. It is calculated, sharp pain, none of the aching, raw, visceral pain he has felt from wounds before. Sherlock has often considered himself "torture-proof", but this---this is ingenious and terrifying enough that had he something to tell, he might find himself incapable of holding it in.  
  
"It hurts," he breathes.

 

He admits it hurts, which is terrifying in and of itself as an admission, and Irene's hands pause for a moment before she removes his trousers all together, along with his shoes.  
  
"The knife wound, or the poison?" she asks, concern creeping into her voice. That irritates her, and she turns away, reaches for the napkins and the hot (now lukewarm) water left by the tea service. Her hands are efficient as she tests the temperature of the water, dampens one of the cloth napkins, and presses it against the wound in his leg.

 

He tries to shake his head, and lets out a small noise of frustration when he finds that the only thing he can move his his tongue and jaw. And even then, only just.  
  
"I can't feel my legs," he tells her. "This poison---it's _potent_." The slur to his voice is marginally better, though perhaps only because he can now focus entirely on his mouth and tongue.

 

The damp cloth comes away pink with blood, and Irene drips water over the wound, slowly sluicing away the blood to allow her a better view. "Good. Then you won't flinch if I have to stitch it closed," she replies. The edges of the wound are clean; the knife had been sharp.  
  
She steps away again, digs through the cabin until she finds a first aid kit, discreetly tucked away, and considers the antiseptic options within. "I'd suggest not sulking in silence," she continues, "Or I might start asking questions to gauge your coherence."  
  
She makes it a threat, because she isn't _concerned_ ; she refuses to be.

 

"It's torture enough," he slurs. "Questions will only make it _worse_."  
  
Childish? Yes. Does he care? No.

 

She picks out an antiseptic, antibacterial cream, and some butterfly clasp closures from the first aid kit, then sits on the edge of the bed, her attention seemingly focused on cleaning the knife wound. Memories of London and Nassau and San Salvador gnaw at the edges of her conscious mind though Irene exerted her considerable strength of will to ignore them.  
  
Instead, she keeps herself turned away from him, and tends to the knife wound, spreading ointment along the raw cut and exposed flesh with a steady fingertip, reminding herself the last time she had treated his knife wounds had been in Kotor. And that had not had dire results.  
  
"The first time we met, you were at a loss for words. Was that genuine, or a ploy for Doctor Watson's sake?" She indulges in a smirk, sight unseen.

 

He wants to arch his back, to stop the pain shooting down his spine.  
  
"Of course it was genuine!" he snaps. "I had expected a great many things, but someone so adept to my plans was _not_ one of them."  
  
He inwardly scowls, admitting she can surprise him.

 

She doesn't bother hiding the smug warmth in her words, the pleased smile that curves her lips. There is no point in hiding the signs of her pleasure, in denying that he has given her exactly what she wanted, because she wants him to be galled that she takes advantage, because she _wants_ to know these things and she wants him irritable enough to stay conscious.  
  
"Mmm, I can see how this could be useful," she purrs. She begins attaching the butterfly clasps, pulling the wound closed, relieved that very little blood seems to be still seeping from the wound, at least for the moment. "Shall I ask what made you convinced the body in the morgue was mine, or leave that to the imagination?"

 

He is in too much pain to see the manipulation behind it. All he can feel is his back and his arms and how they hurt. He can feel a very slight pressure near his leg, and he imagines that must be the Woman cleaning his injury.  
  
He can only hope that the father is feeling this sort of agony.  
  
"You selected a corpse that mirrored your body," he says. "I couldn't delete that memory."

 

She knows, intellectually, that she has gotten under his skin, that she had gotten under his skin long ago. It was only in moments of extreme exhaustion or duress that she would admit he has done the same to her. Still, there is no denying that his admission sparks an unexpected warmth, it is not proof positive of sentiment. They wore proof of their denied sentiment like scars on their skin, and his admission was not that.  
  
It was proof of a colder nature, that she had made an impression on his mind before there was sentiment. That her mark on him was scribed on his brain, on his intellect, in a professional capacity, as much as he his was on her. It was, after all, what really mattered for them both. Scars on the heart were easily denied. Scars on the intellect were not.  
  
It is what sets them apart, what keeps them from being ordinary despite how sentiment made them so.  
  
"'Couldn't'," she repeats, still utterly smug as she finishes with the closures, and preps a square of gauze. "That means you tried. _And_ you never figured out the corpse."

 

His face can't scowl, but he would. The sting of her knowing these things hurts almost as much as the pain in his back, the pain that is traveling to his abdomen.  
  
"I had narrowed it down to three," he replies, taking in a pained breath. He doesn't answer the first statement, because it is obvious. Having her nude body in his mind was irrelevant, a waste of space. But no matter how hard he worked to delete it, he couldn't. She was always there, in her high heeled shoes, figure perfectly etched in his mind. Every word she said echoed like cold pinpricks in his brain. He couldn't control his heart, but he prided himself on being able to control his mind. And yet, there she was. There she always was.

 

The laboured breath he takes reminds Irene of the reason why he answers at all, reminds her of the imbalance between them, and the advantage she holds over him now.  
  
It is an advantage she relishes, but one that cannot hold. They're too alike, and she owes him far too much to willingly leave a secret like that for him to call upon, at some later date. She wants the scale balanced, before one of them is too far ahead of the other.  
  
The smug pleasure leeches out of her voice, as she presses the gauze against his skin, adheres it, and her voice is crisp. Unfeeling.  
  
"Kate. You guessed it, back in London."

 

He would smile, if he could.  
  
"I knew I was right," he says. He lets out another small moan of pain. "She was so fond of you, though.”

 

She waits for a moment, to ensure the gauze isn't going to fall off, that he isn't going to immediately start bleeding again, and rises, walks away from the bed. She keeps her back to him as she picks up the cup of tea she'd left earlier, while she questioned the father, their original suspect. It is tepid at best, but it gives her something to do, something familiar.  
  
"'Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side,' as you were so fond of saying," she reminds him. "I played to win."  
  
Ironic, that. She half turns to watch him, and sips her tea.

 

He lets out a pained breath. "I did say that," he agrees. And here he was, on a holiday made entirely of sentiment. Sentiment and murder. It was more them.  
  
His eyes move over to her as she goes for her tea. The tea she was having while in the room with the father. He can't turn to her, can't knock the cup from her hand.  
  
"Don't---" he breathes. "Poisoned?!"

 

She twitches her lips into an obvious smirk, an expression meant purely to rile him for it never quite reaches her eyes, and she takes another pointed sip of tepid tea.  
  
"Reflection in the window," she says, setting the cup back down with a clink of china and gesturing to the window. "I gave him the opportunity to see if he would try. He didn't."  
  
A faint smile, this time actually reaching her eyes. "It made the boy obvious."

 

'Obvious," he repeats. She's picked up a few of his favorite phrases.

His back muscles seize up again. He hates feeling like this. He hates it. He hates how utterly vulnerable he is.

 

"But your concern is touching."  
  
Despite his claims, it's obvious that his body feels _something_ from the poison or its antidote, that even if he couldn't feel his legs, there was something making muscles clench and waver. "New symptoms?"  
  
The laundry list is growing. Paralysis in his legs, the slurring words, blurred vision. She swallows back her fear.

 

"Pain," he breathes. "My back muscles."  
  
He hates that he's still answering her. He wants to just wallow, to just be silent, but he doesn't have the strength to fight the response. It's pain for the sake of pain, and Sherlock hates it because it has no meaning other than to _hurt_.

 

Her lips thin as she digests the new information, considers painkillers, discards the idea. There was too much uncertainty with the antidote and the residual poison. She indulges for a moment in contemplating how easy it would be for the boy and his father to be pushed out of the train, and relishes in a vicious satisfaction at the idea, though it would be infeasible, not if they were to stay in custody.  
  
"Pain and paralysis," she says, resting a hand against the teapot. The tea within it was still warm, unlike that in her cup, and she pours a second, fresh cup. "It _is_ an elegant method of interrogation. Can you swallow properly without choking on your own spit?"

 

He swallows. "Yes. Disconcerting, because that may mean extended interrogation. I suppose we should also feel some pity for your dead police officer."  
  
The slurring is improving, and Sherlock decides to take advantage of it by being as verbose as possible.  
  
If only the pain would improve.

 

"He might have been useful," she agrees. It is hardly what he means, but it is the only pity she manages.  
  
She brings the teacup over, and tugs a second pillow under his head, to prop him up, before putting the cup of tea to his lips. "Then I suggest drinking up."

 

He is utterly limp as she moves him, but he lets out a noise of pain as she moves his neck and the muscles of his back to prop him up. Why did it target the back? Why such a large area so precisely? What chemical makeup caused the pain to spread so evenly across every muscle with every beat of his heart?  
  
He wants to ask these questions. Instead, all he can do is let out a pained cry.  
  
" _Irene_ \----"

 

She freezes at his pained cry, and for a brief moment there is a look of utter panic on her face before she buries it, before the mask of cool indifference slips back on. Though even then, there are obvious cracks in that mask, cracks in the way her mouth tenses, in the way her eyes focus on him, as if to catch every tiny twitch of muscle, in the way her hand hovers, as if suddenly afraid to touch him again.  
  
"I'd give you painkillers, but if he were half as clever as he seems, the antidote would react negatively to the common ones."

 

"I know," he says. He wants to tell her he doesn't care. But he won't die, not like this. He won't give their prisoner the satisfaction.  
  
He sees the concern on her face, albeit briefly, and he understands the need to hide it. He would remove his ability to feel fear for her, if he could. Concern and caring only weakens them. They weaken each other, at least. A shared fallibility.  
  
"I really must get some of this for some of my more difficult suspects," he says.

 

She meets his eye, and it is obvious to Irene that he understands, that her sudden fear at his distress is what he had felt in San Salvador when she had been shot. They are hard as diamonds, but they can cut each other, chip away at each other in ways no one else can.  
  
It strengthens her resolve that they will part in Moscow, that they _must_ part, whether or not Irene Adler returns to life, whether or not that life involves London. They cannot stay, not like this. Not where the world knew them both, not where they could be _seen_ in their weaknesses.  
  
She brings the cup back to his lips. "You hardly need poison to be irritating enough to break a suspect."

 

He swallows. The tea feels hot, burns his cells as it goes down his throat. It doesn't help the pain.  
  
"That's not a very original observation," he says. The muscle of his cheek reacts, and he smirks, just the slightest bit. He would never admit it, of course, but she makes him feel better. Not physically, and the tea is bland, but she makes him feel...safe. It is what he imagines someone with a more attentive mother might feel when being comforted.

 

He smirks, and the weak reaction eases her fear the tiniest bit. The proof that he can drink, that the paralysis or spasms have not affected his esophageal muscles, eases her fears even more.  
  
"Maybe not," she answers. The hand that is not holding the cup to his lips rests against his head, her fingers in his hair. It is an unconscious gesture, as if reassuring herself that he is still physically present. She'd think it was idiotic, too utterly sentimental, if she realizes what she's doing.  
  
"But I have a far better understanding of what it takes to break someone than anyone else making that observation, don't you think?"

 

"I want to quantify---"  
  
He wants to quantify the pain, to know exactly how long he has left. He shuts his eyes, relishing in the hypersensitivity of his head and the feel of her fingers running across his scalp.  
  
"You have me at quite the disadvantage," he says. She always has, of course.

 

She hesitates when his eyes shut, but when he doesn't respond, doesn't whimper or gasp in pain, she allows herself to linger, her fingers curling into his hair, running against his scalp. She hates hesitating, because hesitation is reaction, reaction is being out of control, rather than action. She hates it, that he makes her lose control.  
  
But he is the only one who does, the only one who has even the slightest chance of winning, and she cannot help but be caught by it (she won't call it love).  
  
"You say that as if I don't always," she answers, pulling the cup away from his lips and setting it down out of reach. But there is a fondness in her tone, a fragile intimacy. "But I could say the same."

 

"You could," he replies. "But you won't."  
  
And even now, with his words, he is not fully expressing how much of an advantage she has over him. Nor, he imagines, will he ever.  
  
"The pain is subsiding," he says. Instead of 'excruciating', it is now at 'intolerable'.

 

She has to laugh at that, a wry chuckle with an edge of harshness. Not only because he's right, because he is: she will not admit to weakness or to any advantage he has over her, because she will not lose to him again, but because it is how they are best. In the space between words, the minute observations and deductions, in the truth in denial.  
  
And because they are who they are, too extraordinary, too stubborn, too enamoured of their own inhuman facades and their untouchability, to be anything but.  
  
Her fingers linger along his scalp. No doubt anyone who intruded would call it sentimental, but it is the easiest way to gauge his sensitivity, his awareness. "And the paralysis? Any movement in your extremities?"

 

He attempts to move his foot and finds it impossible. He moves his hand with all of his might, but feels nothing, at first. After a moment, he feels his thumb shift. It's not much, but it's a start. He moves his thumb, trying to pull it closer to her. He doesn't want to draw comfort from her, he tells himself. He doesn't, but when his index finger moves as well, he moves it towards her, too.  
  
"Slowly," he says. "May be a few hours."

 

"Good."  
  
She wraps the dominatrix's armour around herself with that single word, but there is no denying the fact that she means it, the ring of truth and genuine feeling behind it. She untangles her hand from his hair, but instead of stepping away immediately, she reaches down and curls her fingers around his, feeling the twitch, the labourious movement as he moves two fingers.  
  
"Stay awake," she commands. "Tell me your symptoms every half hour."

 

"Half hour," he says. "Every half hour."  
  
He wants to sleep. He can't. He is too afraid to, not that he'd admit it. Her fingers around his are comforting. But he has no idea how long a half hour is.  
  
"Planning on sleeping? Leaving?"

 

"I'm not tired."  
  
She should step away, should return to her seat and the now-cold tea in her cup, but instead she perches at the edge of his bed, her fingers curled around his. She studies him, studies the way their fingers are twined, the movement of muscles beneath his skin. "Would you rather I left?"

 

No. No, he doesn't want her to go. He won't admit it. He curls his fingers with hers, the only indicator that he wants her to stay.  
  
"If that's what you prefer," he says.

 

A precise space between opera house box seats. The almost accidental brush of a hand. A single knowing look. The curl of fingers against hers.  
  
They spoke their truths in action, in the distance from London to Karachi, in the grip of a pair of needle-lined handcuffs. He'd never admit to wanting her to stay, but he knows she will read what he wants in everything else.  
  
And for once that is enough, that she doesn't force him to admit what he wants. Perhaps because it is what she wants as well, or because he is in no shape to fight her satisfactorily. So she remains, perched on the edge of the bed, her fingers curled with his.  
  
"The drugs must be wearing off," she chuckles. "You're nowhere near as accommodating with your answers as you were before."  
  
She squeezes his hand ever so slightly, even as her free hand reaches for her mobile. "Go to sleep, Sherlock."

 

Sleep. Yes, he should. He should sleep, but he can't. He simply lays there, trying to ignore the pain and the fear. Fear that is probably irrational and entirely useless, but he can't help feeling.  
  
"Stay," he says, his voice no louder than a breath. "Stay here."  
  
It's the closest he'll come to admitting he needs her there. Grounding him.

 

She is too cold to melt. Too untouchable to be moved by pleas. But she doesn't pull away, and her grip on his hand tightens.  
  
"I'm not leaving." Not until Moscow. She'll leave him in Moscow, because they have to, for both their sakes.  
  
She sets the mobile down and reaches over, pushing a lock of his hair off his forehead. "I'll wake you before you stop breathing. I'm nowhere near finished with you yet, Mr. Holmes."

 

"I should hope not, Woman," he replies, letting his eyes drift closed. He has no real fear that she won't be here when he wakes. He thinks, even a few weeks ago, he'd have worried that she'd leave without him, that she would vanish and he'd be alone again. Not now, not after everything.  
  
And so, here, he makes himself vulnerable, completely. He sleeps with his body immobilized, with pain keeping his mind from clarity. He sleeps, because he knows he can sleep. He would sooner call it _love_ than _trust_ , but it is possible that this action is a mixture of the two.


	6. When Disguises Wear Thin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sherlock Holmes sleeps, recovering from the poison in his veins, the Orient Express barrels on towards Stockholm. Meanwhile, Irene Adler continues to build a network from her own contacts and the tatters of Jim Moriarty's web...

Irene remains exactly where she is, perched on the edge of the bed, her fingers twined with his, until he falls asleep, until his breathing is deep and rhythmic. Only then does she untangle herself from him, but even then she does not leave. She settles into an armchair with her mobile in hand, calls for food and more tea, and despite the wordless vulnerability, the silent intimacy, the Woman begins to weave her web.

There are texts to Sibyl Vane; her original plan of coy teasing notes left with violins has been discarded. It is too slow, too lingering, too easy to delay her revelation to Sibyl with the excuses of sentiment. Sibyl is still surprised, confused, but by the speed with which she responds, Irene expects the woman will come around quickly. Within the day, perhaps.  
  
There is one text too, to Moran.  
  
``One chance left.  
  
She eats, as well, as she plans. Her momentary dizziness earlier had made her realize that she did not remember the last time she'd eaten, and once there is food, she finds herself famished.  
  
There is something almost painfully domestic about the scene on its surface. Him in his sickbed, her keeping watch. But the fact that he is sleeping off a poison and its antidote, that she watches over him while plotting to take control of the remnants of Jim Moriarty's network is what matters. That the disguise of domesticity hides a far more interesting story.  
  
It is more _them_.  
  
She checks the time, and expects he should at least begin to stir soon, and leaves a fresh cup of tea and some food on a tray next to the bed, just out of his reach.

 

Had he realized how long he was unconscious, he'd have been furious. He does not prefer sleeping, especially when in such a precarious and vulnerable position. All the same, his body has needed the reprieve, and when he takes in a sharp breath as wakefulness moves over him, he feels no unnatural pain, as he had before. There are pinpricks in his feet as sensation returns to his extremities.  
  
"John?" he says, trying to sit up. It's a natural call to the person who has taken care of him the most. It isn't more than a second later when he corrects himself as the room comes into focus.  
  
"Woman."

 

As soon as he gasps his way into wakefulness, Irene locks her phone and sets it aside. There is no doubt in her mind that he will be able to read in the creases in her clothing, in the disturbances in the cabin, that she has not moved from her seat in hours, that she had not _left_ at all.  
  
But that is something that she cannot be bothered to hide. There are too many things they've learned about each other, too many ways they've worked their way under each other's skin, to even try hiding that now.  
  
Still, she smirks at his response, knowing and smug. "If I were any other woman, I'd be jealous."

 

"I think such jealousy is reserved for _girlfriends_ ," Sherlock says. The Woman is not his girlfriend. Such a thing is silly, juvenile. Not nearly _them_ , despite how juvenile they can behave at times. John's relationship with his girlfriends doesn't mean as much as this does. Even that new woman in John's life, the one he's nearly married, she doesn't mean as much.  
  
He moves to sit up, and his eyes fall on the tea and food near him. Near him, but just outside of his field of reach. Clearly on purpose.  
  
"A few hours," he theorizes. "No more than a day."

 

The smirk becomes a chuckle at his answer. She is, deep down, relieved by the disdainful answer, because it proves he is himself again, that he is not likely to gasp out her name in actual, terrified pain again.  
  
She prefers to be the Woman, rather than Irene.  
  
"About four hours," she confirms. She reaches over to where the remnants of her own meal sits within easy reach, and pops a bit of buttered bread into her mouth. It is a pointed gesture, as she's certain he'll pick up. That she expects he'll be hungry, that he'll need to eat, but that she will not make it easy for him, even if she'll provide the necessary means.  
  
"You do, of course, realize that by being quite that dismissive, I'm obliged to ask what exactly you think I am."

 

He raises an eyebrow. "Would you prefer the long or short version? What I think you are, Woman."

 

She mimics his expression with a tilt of her head. "Make a deduction, Mr. Holmes."

 

"To me." he replies. "You want to know what you are to me."  
  
He doesn't know if she really does want to know, or if he actually knows the answer. She's---everything. Everything that he finds tempting, desirable. She means a lot to him, but he doesn't know exactly what it is.

 

She reaches for her tea, and takes a sip before answering.   
  
"What makes you think I don't already know?"

 

"Then you have no reason to ask," he says. "You're not going to make me your boyfriend, I know."

 

Another sip, the tea warm, if a touch muddy, on her tongue. "Your mind's still muddled, I see," she tells him archly. She does know the answer, though she refuses to say it, refuses to admit it even to herself just how much they've tied themselves to each other.   
  
She gestures to the tray just out of his reach. "You should eat."

 

He lets out a short noise that is not quite a laugh. His mind feels far better than it had. He looks to the food, and to where she's placed it. A test, perhaps? To see if he can acquire it himself, or to see if he'll ask her for help.  
  
He isn't certain which response would be winning, to her.  
  
He does neither, looking over to her. He answers her question.  
  
"When you leave, and you will," he says. "I will miss you."

 

Damn him. She wonders briefly if he has been learning what people like from her as much as she has about the way he saw the world from him. But she decides it is an idiotic line of thought, and pushes it away as she sets her half-empty teacup down.  
  
"Rescinding the invitation for me to return to London now, Mr. Holmes?" she asks lightly, the teacup clattering ever so slightly against the tray as she sets it down. Still, despite her light words, her eyes remain on him, watchful, studying, as if expecting some tiny betrayal, some tiny twitch to give him away.

 

"Of course not," he replies. He attempts to move to the edge of the bed, but feels a wave of dizziness keep him from rising.  
  
"But you won't stay. It isn't in your nature. You're---" He finds himself smiling slightly. "---the embodiment of the parable of the scorpion and the toad."  
  
Oddly enough, one of the only parables he hadn't bothered to delete over the years.

 

That makes her smile. Pleased and genuine but still as steely as the dominatrix ever was. It is, perhaps, the single most accurate deduction she has ever heard him make.   
  
"Then isn't it fortunate that you're proving yourself far more resilient than the toad," Irene answers. She slips the mobile back into her pocket, and rises from her seat, the motion stretching stiff muscles. "But I can be convinced to take holidays."

 

"Yes," he says, and his small is small, but genuine. "I think you can."  
  
He only hopes that convincing isn't as difficult as he remembers it being. But then again, this is the Woman. The Woman is often on a parallel wavelength to him. Hardly the same, but they are going in the same direction.  
  
He wonders if she's going to head to the food. If she's going to bring it to him, to show him she's noticed the amount of time it's taken for him to fetch it himself.

 

Her body protests at the stretch, but it is a pleasant ache and her sigh is one of satisfaction. She raises an eyebrow at him, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she considers his position, the lack of progress he's made getting up.  
  
"Mind over matter, Mr. Holmes," she informs him. Instead of heading for him, she turns away to reach for a hairbrush on the vanity. Her voice is softer when she no longer faces him. "You say that as if I haven't already been convinced."

 

His smile fades into a slight glare. Mind over matter is, after all, how he lives his life.  
  
"Any response from Mycroft's assistant?" he queries, staying in place on the bed.

 

"Now you're glaring at me," she predicts without having to turn around. She tilts the small vanity mirror to an angle that would allow her to see herself, and also to see him reflected (glaring as predicted) as she begins brushing out her hair.  
  
"Nothing I've responded to. I think it's best not to risk giving away the game until we have a plan for Stockholm, don't you?"  
  
She should suggest that they move immediately from Stockholm to Moscow. But she doesn't.

 

He watches her brush out her hair. They are not a couple, he will never brush her hair out for her. But he will watch her, will enjoy the mundane and even domesticity of it.  
  
He schools his expression the moment he notices the mirror's angle. Not glaring, not now that she's watching him. Always a game between them, even now.  
  
"Of course," he says. "Can I use your phone?"

 

Her lips twitch, easily visible in the mirror, as she sees him reflected in the mirror, his expression schooled to neutrality. "Not at all," she answers unrepentant. "You've had your hands on my mobiles far too often. She gestures to the table, farther from him than the tray with the food and tea. "Use our hapless victim's."  
  
She is more than a little curious whether he'd change tactics, convince himself to sit up and reach for the food, or to actually pull himself up to walk towards the mobile phone.

 

"Yes," he says, casually. "But I'm looking at hotel reservations, that requires a significantly faster internet connection than his phone can provide me."  
  
A blatant lie, but one he hopes she won't recognize.

 

She passes the brush through her hair one more time, shaking out the idly curling length of it before she turns to face him. There is too much on her mobile now, with texts to Moran, to Sibyl, to chance letting him see it. Not that she had been willing to do so before; it had taken an accident for him to see it in Ontario.  
  
But he is insisting, and it puts her on her guard, even with his blandishments. "I'll consider it. If you tell me whether you're not getting up because you're being stubborn or because you can't."

 

A small smile touches the edge of his mouth.  
  
"You think I won't answer your question, so your mobile will go untouched by me," he replies. "It won't work."

 

She raises an eyebrow in response.   
  
"Won't it? You're still dodging the question."

 

"Neither," he replies. "I simply know you're looking to judge the state of my health."  
  
This is, of course, only partially true. He is uncertain about his balance as of yet. All the same, he holds out his hand for the mobile.

 

She smirks, and crosses her arms again. "For pure self-interest," she informs him. "I can't accurately judge whether or not to leave you here for your dear brother to find if I don't know whether I'd have to bodily drag you off the train otherwise."  
  
He holds his hand out for the mobile, and she does nothing in response. After all, all she has to do to win is nothing. She turns back to the vanity, begins twisting her hair up into its intricate knot. "We shouldn't stay long in Stockholm. He'll figure out your bluff soon enough."

 

"No more than two days," he agrees. His hand remains extended for a moment, but then he draws it back, feeling oddly _chastised_ for having it out in the first place. She does this, of course. Makes him feel things he doesn't think he should.  
  
"And nothing as dramatic as dragging me away should be necessary," he adds.

 

"You're very insistent on this point, but you've hardly managed to prove it," she retorts, adding pins to her hair with practiced motions. She hardly needs the mirror's assistance to do this properly, but using it is making another point, that he isn't the only thing worthy of her attention in the moving train car.  
  
"Sibyl knows I'm alive," she continues, carefully casual. "Kitty Riley is no doubt on her way to being discredited as we speak."  
  
That is a half-truth at best, a lie more accurately, but a reminder nonetheless, to herself as well as to him, that he was right, that she will leave. There is not much between Stockholm and Moscow, she tells herself.  
  
Another half-truth at best.

 

"Good," he replies. He looks at the food, and then over at the phone. The phone is more important, he decides, and he turns to lower his feet to the floor. He can stand. He _will_ stand.  
  
Forcing his face into the most calm and stoic look he possibly can, he pushes up, getting himself to his feet. Easy.  
  
The train jolts slightly as the conductor changes speed. Sherlock loses his balance and topples forward.

 

She sees him fall forward in the mirror, and Irene hates that her immediate response is one of concern. She spins around, the pin that had been in her hand falling to the ground, her hair falling out of its half-done knot to trail down her back.  
  
She forces herself to hold back, to take the mobile out of her pocket, to set it on the vanity, before she moves towards him. She forces her paces to be deliberate, to let him stew for seconds. "I'm impressed by your recovery, Mr. Holmes," she tells him dryly as she nears, bending down to reach for him.

 

His knee aches from where it hit the floor. He looks up, letting out an irritated snort as she puts the mobile on the vanity.  
  
"Worried I'll pick your pocket?" he asks. She reaches for him, and he instinctively reaches back. "Neuropathy hasn't quite left my legs yet. I imagine by the time we reach Stockholm I should be able to walk, at least."

 

"You picked my pocket for car keys in Las Vegas," she reminds him as he takes her hand. His hand is cool in hers, but she expects that is simply because she'd been holding a warm teacup not too long ago. Her grip tightens on his hand, and she guides his arm around her shoulders to help him up.   
  
Still, she is careful as she touches him, more careful than her tart words would expect. "I'd never put it past you to use every trick at your disposal to get what you wanted."

 

She's right, of course. And, had she not left the mobile on the vanity, he'd be in possession of it at that moment, he's certain of it. His reflexes aren't failing him, not yet. He's able to hold some of his own weight as she helps him up, and that feels good. It's far better than their trip to this room, where all he felt was an oppressive weight holding him down.  
  
"I do need a mobile," he says. "And I have no interest in your dealings and your new web."  
  
Also not entirely true.

 

"Now I'm insulted," she answers with an exhale of effort as she helps him up. The healing injury on her leg is sore, twinging at the amount of strain she'd put on it of late, but she refuses to let it show, to let it slow her down any more than it already has.   
  
Still, she is more than a little relieved that he answers, that he seems to at least be better, if not fully recovered as he helps pull himself up. She does not feel like she is the sole thing keeping him upright, this time.  
  
"Did you really think I'd buy that obvious a lie?"

 

"Of course not," he replies. As he goes down to the bed, he wraps an arm around her waist, to pull her down with him.

 

An involuntary gasp of surprise escapes her before she catches herself metaphorically even as she falls physically down onto the bed with him.   
  
"Bored of being alone in bed, Mr. Holmes?" she asks, her voice teasing. Even so, she does not pull away. She'll miss this when they part, the games they play with each other, that blur the lines between the mental and the physical.

 

He can barely manage blood flow to his legs, much less to other parts of himself, so sexual activity is null and void at this moment. At the same time, he does like having her here, wrapped up with him. He tells himself it's a memory of satisfactory sexual encounters, though he imagines that there is something significantly more sentimental within it.  
  
"You have always been one who can easily cure my boredom," he replies.

 

Despite her teasing tone, there is something undeniably intimate, undeniably fitting about being tangled up with him like this. It reminds her of Vienna, of listening to him play the violin in a gas lamp lit courtyard, of fleeting moments in a sand-filled dormitory room in San Salvador, of a moment of little more than lingering touch on an airplane.   
  
Little moments that redefine them, even as they refuse to admit to being redefined.  
  
She props herself up on one elbow, shifting so she can study him more thoroughly without moving away. "I'd tell you I'm flattered, but then you'd tell me not to be," she answers, running a fingertip along the curve of his jaw. "There's a deduction to be made in that."

 

They are wrapped in each other, utterly. And when this is over, when the holiday is done, he will miss the intimacy they've developed. He will not find another lover after her, he has told her this and he means it. He has no desire to attempt to recreate what has been found, now.  
  
He smiles at the feel of her fingertip across his jaw.  
  
"I won't thank you for watching over me while I rested," he says.

 

She smiles at his response. Yes, the deduction to be made here is utterly obvious, but they won't voice it, because it is part of the things they leave unsaid. The word that makes them too human for their own facades.  
  
She will miss this. She doubts any subsequent holidays they take will be able to replicate these moments. She wouldn't want them to. These were moments only made possible by death. And the knowledge that this will end allows her to savour it, to etch into her mind the feel of the mattress, the warmth and the weight of his arm around her waist, the feel of his jaw and the faint texture of stubble against her fingertip.  
  
"I don't think I've ever heard you thank _anyone_ without an ulterior motive." A smirk. "Not that I don't expect you to have an ulterior motive now, mind."

 

"You haven't worked out what it is, yet?" he teases, smiling at her. He moves his head slightly, pressing his lips against her hand.  
  
"Who will we be in Stockholm?" he asks.

 

"Mmm," she hums thoughtfully as she shifts to rest on her back rather than her side. She tilts her head so that she is still watching him, and her smile softens as he touches his lips to her hand.   
  
"I haven't played the heiress in ages," she muses, letting her hand linger against his mouth for a moment before taking his hand, examining the long fingers, the wink of the gold wedding band that he has yet to remove. Its mate, the amethyst and diamond ring from Kotor, remains on her left hand. She has yet to remove it either, despite their current disguises.   
  
"Heiress to an Australian mining operation, I think, and her conniving husband." She arches an eyebrow at him, her finger running along his knuckles. "Plotting my murder, no doubt, to get his hands on my fortune."

 

"Oh, and what a wicked and confused man," he says. "Desiring her, but knowing his greed will long satiate him once his lust has run its course."  
  
He smirks.  
  
"Or so he convinces himself."

 

"Hm, claiming to prefer cold comforts rather than warm ones," she says as she stretches. The motion eases the stiffness in her leg, and brings her closer to him, though she'd say the latter was hardly a concern. Still, she reaches up to run the fingers of her other hand, the one not twined with his, into his hair, tangling in his curls to pull him gently down to her.  
  
"Now that _does_ sound familiar."

 

He leans over, pressing his lips to the side of her jaw. Just a simple touch, but one rich with potential. Eventually, of course.  
  
"She isn't foolish enough to think he'd select love over greed, is she?" he asks against her skin. "She must have some inkling of his plans."

 

Another pleased hum at the feel of his lips against her jaw, at the warmth of his words on her skin. She turns, pulls away just enough to press her mouth to his in a lazy kiss, languid but with the promise of exploration, of potential.  
  
"Of course. She's a businesswoman," she murmurs back. "Not the type to let her heart cloud her head, no matter how charming he is in his greed."

 

"Charming," Sherlock repeats. "She'd best be careful, he's planned around her knowledge, and whatever sentiment she holds towards him. They _are_ married, after all. One of them had to agree for sentimental reasons."  
  
This is, of course, not true. Sherlock has seen many loveless marriages, including that of many of his would-have-been clients, and he knows that many marry simply for convenience. Still, he wants to see what the Woman will do with that piece of their characters' story.

 

She chuckles, low in her throat at the part of the story he offers up. "A moment of sentiment," she allows, pressing another kiss to his jaw. "Her mistake, letting her heart rule her head. But now it's a convenient fiction. Certainly not lingering sentiment."

 

"She'd never admit fault, I imagine," he replies. Just as the Woman didn't, even as he turned her mobile towards her with proof of her own attachment to him on it. She insisted that none of it was real, a response to his dark eyes daring her to deny what he proved. She would always take him up on his dare.  
  
"Just as I imagine he wouldn't admit to enjoying the game as much as he does," he says, allowing himself to give in, just a little.

 

She smiles against his skin, and draws back again. Small touches then drawing back, as she always does. "He'd hardly have to admit that he enjoys himself," she answers fondly. "It's obvious, and she's been watching, waiting for the betrayal. She knows where to look."  
  
Her fingertip traces the spot where her lips had lingered. "The question is does he realize it?"

 

"That depends on how this story ends," he says. "Though---"  
  
The thought comes unbidden, and he holds it in before he can speak it. _Though, he probably couldn't kill her even if he wanted to._  
  
It's only a split second of faltering before he continues. "He does have quite an intricate plan to kill her."

 

They make their way in seeing the things everyone else miss. The crease of fabric, the clinging of a pet hair, the split second pause between words.  
  
She hears the pause, the momentary falter, and knows there is something he does not say. But it is something she is content to not know, something to leave as a mystery, because they have far too few mysteries between them, because sentiment should remain one of them. A false mystery, of words deliberately left unsaid, but a mystery nonetheless.  
  
Irene pauses, tries to contain a yawn, fails. She refuses to admit to being tired, but she is, and the warmth and their shared closeness (she refuses to think of it as comfort) lulls her. But the moment passes and she blinks the drowsiness away before answering, "Oh? And how much of his intricate plan has she discovered?"

 

"I don't think he can predict how much she knows," he says. He can hear her sleepiness, and he finds it---appealing. Comforting. He wants to sleep, as well. Which is odd, he thinks. He rarely sleeps on a case, much less at the very end of one while he's still high on finding the solution.  
  
"How far will they go, though, Woman?" he asks. He presses his lips to her hair, briefly, just for a moment. "I don't think he'll blink first."

 

Her eyes shut, briefly, in a long blink, at the touch of his lips against her hair, his breath warm against her skin. She wants to tell him that she will not sleep, that she won't give him the advantage, the opportunity to take her mobile. She wants to, but she doesn't, because to goad him would be to break the bubble of warmth they've lulled themselves into with their talk.  
  
She doesn't break the bubble, but she does muse for a moment on how strange they are, how this is what brings them together, that discussions of disguise and hypothetical murder are what they murmur as they are tangled up in each other. "She'll push him as far as necessary, no doubt," she murmurs, shifting close to him, to the warmth of their bodies, as she blinks again, another too-long blink. "He won't blink first, and she won't let him win. I expect someone will hurt themselves before anyone concedes, even for a moment."  
  
Their disguise would hardly need the level of detail they were spinning, not for a stop of two days in Stockholm, but then, if Irene were honest and she rarely was, the conversation had long since stopped being about their disguise.

 

"Or they'll hurt each other," he replies.  
  
As she starts to fall asleep, the thought of taking her mobile never even slips into his mind. Within a few hours, his legs should be recovered, but he has no reason to move. No reason to be anywhere but wrapped up with the Woman, watching her start to doze.

 

"They already have."  
  
Irene does not think how this is utterly unlike her, how Irene Adler preferred to sleep alone, preferred wrapping her invulnerability around herself. She does not think on it, because to think on it was to disrupt herself from the pleasure of where she is, because Moscow is coming, because this will end and she will wear her untouchability like her armour again.  
  
She does not think on it, and merely indulges in a momentary reprieve, a holiday, tangled up with the only person in the world who could ever hope to beat her at her own game. Because always winning was boring, and she enjoys temptation far too much.  
  
She doesn't open her eyes again, gives up the pretense of wakefulness, and her mind is half-adrift in unconsciousness when she adds in a bare barely awake murmur, "It's why I won't love you, Sherlock."

 

He finds his lips twitching into a small, privately pleased smile. He can't properly explain the smile, but he accepts it. He accepts the warm pleasure that runs through him at her words, at how she won't love him. They _won't_ love each other, and in this way, they will always and never win against their emotions.  
  
"I would never expect you to," he replies, voice equally quiet, as he presses a kiss to her forehead.


	7. The End of the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chase, a murder, and poison. As the Orient Express barrels on from Vienna to Stockholm, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes flit from danger to danger. Now, as their train approaches their destination, a new opportunity arises, and with it, another risk.

Irene returns to consciousness like a swimmer, her mind and body slowly breaking the surface of sleep, shaking off the fog of rest that clung to her like wisps of spider's silk even as her mind begins categorizing her surroundings. Warmth beside her, the weight of an arm around her waist, the steady rumbling of the train, the dip in the bed suggesting she'd slept deeply, with little movement, little tossing and turning. She blinks, and can make out sunlight through the half-drawn curtains, sunlight ruddy and orange, still early sunrise. A few hours then.  
  
She stretches, turns to face the other occupant of the bed. Her body doesn't scream its protest at her movements, signs that her healing is progressing, and a small, pleased smile touches her lips.

 

He feels her shift into wakefulness, and Sherlock turns his head to watch her. She smiles, and he finds himself returning it, sleepily. This is all rather domestic. Happy, really. It shouldn't last, they'd be far too uncomfortable.  
  
"I was beginning to worry you'd miss our stop," he says.

 

There is a certain complacency, a certain indulgence in the twilight between sleep and full wakefulness. Irene expects it's that complacency that allows her to turn towards him, to linger in the small pleasures of a warm bed and companionable company, rather than to slip out of bed and begin putting herself to rights.  
  
"Are you telling me you would let me sleep rather than roust me out to continue our plans?" she teases, blinking sleep out of her eyes. With every blink, she sheds the cobwebs cocooning her thoughts, the pleasant complacency that was currently a gossamer shroud over her usual poise. She reaches up, brushes a curl from his forehead. "Be careful, Mr. Holmes, I might call you sentimental if that were the case."

 

"It isn't sentiment," he says. "I've dealt with waking up John Watson before he was ready. It was significantly more distracting than being on my own."  
  
He reaches out and brushes the side of her jaw, tucking a lock of hair away.  
  
"And I doubt that even this early you'd be willing to share your mobile with me."

 

She laughs at that and turns her head just enough to brush her lips against his fingertips. "Not a chance," she agrees, pulling herself to a sitting position. Her hair falls down her back, loose and tangled, and Irene imagines she looks very much unlike how she prefers to appear. With smudged makeup and mussed hair, but there is time enough to put herself back together.  
  
"Though I am trying to decide whether I should be insulted that you'd compare me to your flatmate."  
  
She isn't; she understands just who John Watson is, more than just simply Sherlock Holmes' flatmate, but there are fictions to be maintained. And honestly, she'd rather if he didn't make it a habit of comparing her to John Watson.

 

He raises an eyebrow. "Well, once we're both back, I think you'll both be able to argue over which is more insulting. Me saying you're like him, or him like you."  
  
It won't be that way at first. John will have to deal with the major surprise that the Woman is alive, and the minor surprise that Sherlock is also alive. He's certain that things will be all right, eventually. More quickly than not, if Sherlock has it his way.

 

She pulls the light sheet she does not remember drawing over herself off her legs, but at his words turns back to face him. She raises an eyebrow in response, mimicking his expression.  
  
"What makes you so certain I'll return to London long enough to argue with John Watson?"

 

"Easy," he replies with a smirk. "You won't be able to resist. And, after all, it will bother Mycroft, having you so close but so untouchable."  
  
He twists his foot around, checking for mobility. He feels better. If not well, then getting there, at least. He thinks he should thank her for watching over him, for helping him. He won't, of course, but he does think about it.

 

She doesn't ask how he's feeling, because she can tell by watching him that he is considering his range of motion. She's relieved that he does not appear to be worse for wear, but she refuses to tell him that.  
  
Instead, she swings her legs off the bed, settling bare feet on the carpeted floor. "You are full of excuses for why I would return to London," she says. She shoots him a knowing look, a knowing smile, over her shoulder. "One might think you actually want me there."

 

"What a ridiculous notion," he answers. "We'd do nothing but bore each other. And I'll be far too busy."  
  
He traces his fingertip over her shoulder, a gentle touch as opposed to his uncaring words.

 

The light touch sends an unexpected shiver down Irene's spine; it isn't just the touch, but the juxtaposition of it with his careless words, that points to how much they've changed. "Good, I wouldn't stay long even if I deigned to visit," she answers tartly despite the smile on her lips.  
  
She looks down at herself, at the crumpled mess of her clothes, and doesn't even bother trying to smooth away wrinkles. It is a testament to how unexpected their moments of intimacy can be, how their plans are upended simply by being themselves. She pulls her hair over her shoulder, baring the zipper that holds the dress closed down her back.  
  
"Undo me."  
  
She could easily do it herself, but that was hardly the point.

 

"Haven't I already?" he replies. All the same, he moves to unzip her dress, sliding it down her back carefully. He leans forward, pressing his lips to the bared skin across her spine.  
  
"We'll be at the station in a short time," he replies.

 

She expects the touch of his lips against her skin, but it does not keep another shiver from slipping down her spine, nor does it stop her from drawing a deeper breath than is strictly necessary.  
  
"Is that supposed to be a warning or a challenge?" she asks, her hand reaching back for his. Her voice is huskier, throatier, than it had been moments ago, and she cannot dismiss that as a product of sleep.

 

It _had_ simply been a piece of information, but from the way she's looking at him, it is now a challenge. Granted, they're both injured, granted, they're both healing, but he can not possibly deny the way his body reacts to the throatiness in her voice.  
  
"Consider it both," he says.

 

Irene fancies she can almost _hear_ the moment the seed is planted, the moment her question makes his remark a challenge. She turns, the rumpled dress half off her shoulders, and leans towards him, her hand reaching over to rest on his leg, fingers tracing along the inside bend of his knee, up his thigh.  
  
"Well that does make it interesting," she murmurs, letting smug amusement colour her voice. "Perhaps I have absolutely no intention at all to do anything beside make you squirm until we pull into the station."

 

"Ah, but that would be a surprising amount of cruelty," he replies, letting out a small sigh at the feel of her fingertips against his thigh. His body reacts immediately to her touch. He shouldn't indulge, he tells himself. After all, they don't know how much longer he'll be reacting to the poison he was given, and she was stiff and sore after the long wait by his side. But, then again, their personas are hardly a frigid couple.  
  
He presses another kiss, this one to her neck.

 

His body reacts to her touch like an instrument. But not a violin, no. His fingers were nimble and dexterous enough for the violin, but hers are more suited to whips and pianos, to single touches that draw long pure notes. And his sigh draws warmth under her skin, makes her want those dexterous fingers against her body. But the sigh too tells her that nerve sensitivity is returning to his limbs, that he is, if not back to his best, then at the very least back to some semblance of full functionality.  
  
It reassures her as much as his kiss to the sensitive spot on her neck, the touch of his lips sending a jolt of anticipation down her spine. Her fingers trail up his thigh as she presses a kiss to the spot just behind his ear.  
  
"Are you suggesting I wouldn't be capable of that amount of cruelty, Mr. Holmes?" she murmurs.

 

"Absolutely not," he replies. "I remember London, after all. You were extremely adept with your cruelty there."  
  
His head shifts slightly, giving her more room for such delicate kisses. Kisses that are equal parts intolerable and amazing, particularly as he's right now uncertain as to whether or not she is simply playing with him. He is, after all, just a game to her, she has said. A game she'll always win.  
  
He doesn't know if he believes that anymore.  
  
He nips, gently, at her neck, just enough to excite the nerves.

 

He shifts, providing better access, and she takes full advantage, tracing three kisses along the curve. There is something exhilarating and yet completely unlike any game she's played in this exchange. There is measured precise sexuality, yes, the sort she excelled at, but she cannot shake the quiet intimacy of moments ago, the memory of falling asleep tangled in each other, of waking up with the certain knowledge that he was beside her. It was _domestic_ , in a way as utterly unlike Irene Adler as she could imagine.  
  
But unlike Irene Adler or no, she had to admit it was pleasant, in its own way. Warm and comforting. And it brought a gentleness to their play, even if her mind is as focused as ever, as knowing as ever.  
  
But he nips at her neck, and she gasps in surprised pleasure at the playful bite. She smiles, and responds in kind, her teeth catching his earlobe with a similar nip. "Oh, but there's a very important difference between here and London," she informs him in a breathy purr. Her fingers continue their trail upwards until she draws a light circle against his growing arousal, and she nips at his ear again. "I let you have what you wanted then."

 

"Are you planning on denying me now?" he replies, his lips curved into a smirk as he feels the pressure of her teeth on his ear. "Little wonder our husband is planning a murder, then."  
  
The teasing, the touching, the closeness. It will be gone once they've separated, he thinks. She will have nothing pulling herself to him apart from the promise of a holiday. It will be different, and Sherlock does not like it when things change. This, like this, is something he wants. He wants to take what they have and simply repeat it in London. It can't happen, of course, but it doesn't stop him from wanting it.

 

She will miss this, she thinks. This closeness, this bubble where they allow themselves to be exactly as they are, where they are both at once most purely themselves and yet most unlike what the world thinks they would be. But this closeness too is why she refuses to indulge in the idea that their holidays can last more than the seven days they have already agreed upon.  
  
Because when she is Irene Adler again, when she has the spider's web to herself, she cannot risk this vulnerability. Cannot risk exhibiting the _heart_ that could lose her everything again. She cannot, so she indulges now, while there is still time.  
  
She laughs, at the feel of his smile against her throat, and her tongue traces the curve of his ear. "I have every intention of denying you until we are well and properly in Stockholm," she informs him, even as her fingers stroke him with light pressure. "But I believe you'll enjoy the reason why."

 

He will not pout. He will not pout. He will not pout. Oh, hell, he manages to only let out a grunt of disappointment.  
  
"Oh, will I?" he asks, leaning back enough to look at her face, but not away from her closeness. Their bed. It's all becoming rather muddled, what is his and what is hers. "I imagine this is going to be a surprise for me?"

 

He leans back to look at her, and the movement allows her a full view of his face, at the obvious disappointment writ there. She laughs again, delighted, and rests a fingertip on his chin, to tilt his head up the better for her to catch his lower lip with her mouth.  
  
"Only if you insist on not asking," she teases. "But I expect you'll enjoy knowing. To savour the anticipation."

 

He kisses her back. Oh, she would make it so he'd have to ask. If he asked, that would be admitting he has no idea. Not even the slightest clue. He wouldn't ask for one, either. At the same time, she's teasing. She may not be pressing him. And he _does_ want to know.  
  
"Very well," he says. "What are we anticipating there?"

 

The hand that had been teasing him begins tracing back down his leg, drawing curls along his thigh with her nails. She hums her approval at his question, and pulls back just enough to see his face, to take in his expression.  
  
Her own eyes are positively gleaming with pleasure and anticipation, her pupils dilated. "I'm anticipating making it extraordinarily clear to the British Government that we are in fact in Stockholm, exactly where we'd told him we'd be," she answers. "In the form of at least one very explicit photograph. I expect it'll put him off his breakfast for weeks."

 

The smile that spreads across Sherlock's face can only be described as _ecstatic._ He believes one should probably not be quite as excited as he is to send an explicitly sexual photograph to one's brother, but he knows that absolutely no good will come from it. That is the point. If only he could convince his body that this meant he needed to relax his arousal, rather than it increasing exponentially.  
  
"One photograph is hardly enough," he says. "An entire album would be far better." They were imaginative, this would be an excellent time for experimentation, as well.  
  
"No faces," he reminds her. "Otherwise, they become bargaining chips."

 

His response is even better than she'd expected, the slow, absolutely ecstatic smile, as well as his more bodily reaction. It sends another jolt of pure liquid desire down Irene's spine, and she is suddenly finding it more than a little difficult to keep her own word, to not simply shrug out of her undone dress and have him right now.  
  
"Even if there were faces, I doubt he'd let anyone see them. Rather useless bargaining chips," she answers, kissing him again. She tries to keep the pace lazy, exploratory, but there is a demand on her lips, her own desires roused by the potential for havoc they will cause with these photographs.  
  
"But no faces," she agrees, shifting her position to throw one leg across his lap. "What are your thoughts on restraints?"

 

"Positive," he replies, moving to put his arms around her waist, to pull her closer. If Mycroft were aware how often he'd been mentioned in the bedroom with the Woman and Sherlock, he'd probably be far more miserable than he already was. He might even lose the guilt weight he'd gained over the last few months.  
  
"What are yours on more devious activities?"  
  
There were, of course, many sexual activities he'd not taken part in. Since the Woman is the only person he desires sexual contact with, if he's to experience them ever, he'd have to be involved with her.

 

She allows him to draw her close and moves such that she is straddling him as he does. She laughs again, in unadulterated pleasure, at his question, as her mind's eye conjures up the most sour and disgusted expression she imagines Mycroft Holmes' face is capable of making given limitations on facial structure and musculature.  
  
A part of her is almost disappointed that she has no contact in the British Government's office to capture the moment.  
  
"Mmm, in relation to ourselves alone or for maximum impact with your brother?" she asks. "Because if we weren't taking Mr. Holmes into account, I would have you in chains and handcuffs trying to unbind yourself with escape artist tricks while I had my way with you."  
  
The hand that had been teasing him now slips into his hair, and her hips move against his lap in a motion he was no doubt intimately familiar with by now. "But if you are asking simply to scandalize your brother... I expect there's some government official with a generously proportioned desk we can take advantage of."

 

"I see absolutely no reason that both of these things can't happen," he replies. Face flushed, pupils dilated. Sherlock Holmes was undeniably aroused. The Woman brought these things out of him.  
  
He thrusts his hips up to meet her movements, her body rubbing against his trousers.  
  
"How else would you dominate me?" he asks. He leans up to press his mouth to her throat again. He might enjoy taking the reins, to see what it is like to dominate, but for the purposes of _this_ experiment, it's important that Mycroft knows who is in control.

 

Her pulse is positively racing as she arches into him, as she presses as much of her body against his as possible. There is a change in the train car's movements as the train begins to slow, no doubt they are pulling into Stockholm, slowing as they approach the city.  
  
"I told you once that I'd have you on a leash," she informs him, her voice utterly breathless as she matches the rhythm of his hips. Her clients could never move her to this discussing their desires. But he draws this out of her, draws desire and feverish _want_ from her like music from his violin.  
  
"And nothing as prosaic as a necktie. I'd have you properly collared in leather."

 

He chuckles, low in his throat. "Oh, he'd despise that. The Holmes name would be forever smeared."  
  
Oh, the many ways they could show _that_ to Mycroft. Handcuffed, collared, her taking him with some sort of proboscis. Anything, particularly if it was apparent how much Sherlock was enjoying the attention. Enjoying the act.  
  
He traces his tongue to her jawline.  
  
"I still won't beg," he warns her.

 

His tongue traces along her jawline and Irene's hand tightens in his hair as she tries to hold utterly still, lest another brush against him splinter her self-control to pieces.  
  
"Of course you won't," she replies, looking back down at him, her eyes dark, her skin flushed, and her hair a wild tangle down her back. "I'll already have you gagged."

 

He grins, widely and mischievously and utterly genuinely. She makes him _want_ to be sexual, to feel sexual, to feel _deviant_. No, there won't be another Woman in his life again, and that is fine with him. He can't act like this around other people, it wouldn't be comely.  
  
"I imagine you're going to enjoy this just as much as I am," he says. He moves his hips again, picking up the rhythm she stopped.  
  
There's a horn, sign that they're arriving at the station.

 

Her first attempt to answer him is swallowed up by a growl of frustration as he picks up the rhythm again, as he tries to drive her perilously close to utter distraction before they are even properly off the train, much less after they've found a suitably improper government official's desk to abuse.  
  
She swats at the hand gripping her, though she makes no attempt to pull away despite the train's horn, despite the train car's continued slowing. "I expect I'll enjoy it even more," she finally manages to answer. "Don't think I'm only interested in staging photographs for your brother's digestive discomfort, Mr. Holmes. I fully expect you to work for your release."

 

"Believe me, I have no intention of being lazy," he says. "That's Mycroft's job."  
  
She swats at his hand, and after a moment of acting as though he's considering it, he releases her. His arousal is still tight and persistent, but it will relax, soon enough. He is still frustrated by his inability to direct blood flow through sheer force of will. All the same, the frustration is---pleasant, in its own way. Evidence of her superior seduction skills.

 

It is, perhaps, astonishing how their holiday has changed them both. Her in her more tender mercies, him in his growing ability to _play_. She smirks when he releases her, and she kisses him again, this time light and fleeting, before climbing off his lap.  
  
"Hm, I believe it's my prerogative to judge _that_ ," she purrs as she heads for the vanity again, shedding the unzipped dress in a pile on the ground. She can feel her own arousal wet between her legs, stroked by the promise of misbehaviour as much as the motion of his hips, but Irene wills herself to ignore it, even as she considers the plans they will have to make.  
  
She splashes water on her face, washing away the last vestiges of sleep, and glances at him in the mirror. "I expect the Prime Minister of Sweden is an occasional visitor to Parliament. Your brother would know his office on sight?"

 

Sherlock's response is immediate. "Absolutely," he replies. "Mycroft has had several Christmas dinners in his home."  
  
Not that Mycroft's name dropping ever impressed Sherlock. It did, however, impress John, and that was unbelievably annoying.  
  
The Woman washes her face and Sherlock watches her, adjusting his arousal to make it less conspicuous. He doesn't need to stare at her body, he knows her intimately, but he does enjoy watching the way her skin moves as she does, the way the light brings out creases and folds of muscle he hadn't noticed before. It isn't leering; it's appreciation of art.

 

He makes an utterly obvious attempt to adjust himself, and the knowledge of it makes a small smile play at the corner of Irene's mouth. She dries off and pulls her hair swiftly into a tight knot, more in keeping with her heiress persona, simple and efficient, and considers the clothes left from their luggage.  
  
"Good. Then he'll have a difficult time looking the man in the eye at next year's Christmas dinner knowing what's transpired on his desk," she says, picking the well-made but simply adorned sheath dress. It speaks of money, but also a certain economy of motion, a certain reserve her heiress would prefer to project.

 

Sherlock smiles at her change of clothes, and glances briefly in the mirror, taking only the time to run a finger across the side of his hair, parting it messily so a few dark curls fall across his forehead into his eyes. The carefree husband, the one who doesn't have the money his wife does, but acts like he doesn't care. It's all an act, and the defiantly messy haircut and disheveled appearance shows that. He's truly trying to stay in his wife's good graces, and little rebellions are part of what he thinks will keep her occupied so that she won't notice the deeper problems, the plot for murder.  
  
"We haven't selected names," he points out.

 

Her fingers twitch with an urge to brush the curls back, until she realizes precisely why he's parted it that way, and then she merely smiles her approval. "Adelaide," she says without a pause. She slips on her flats, and ignores how unlike herself they make her feel. Still, judging by her body's lack of protest this morning, Irene makes a mental note to attempt to return to stilettos the first chance she has.  
  
It will make her feel more like herself, to slip back into the high heeled shoes.  
  
She glances at him, and rumples his collar. "Adelaide Rinehart, I think. Properly pompous. I suppose he'll insist on something irritatingly casual?"

 

He considers. Names like _Nick_ and _Zack_ come to mind, but they also come complete with an accent and attitude he doesn't think befits the character they're creating. And the wife, as played by the Woman, will not be stupid. She'll want a man with some intellect.  
  
"I'll have to work one out that doesn't sound irritatingly American," he says. "He could be Maximilian, but prefers Max. She can call him whatever she likes."

 

"Maximilian." She tests the name out on her tongue, imagines it on their fictitious couple's wedding invitations-- no not wedding invitations, it was a slip in sentiment, clearly an elopement fit better.  
  
"She'll call him Maximilian, obviously," she says, as the sunlight that had been streaming into their car is suddenly blocked by the walls of the train station. "Another irritation to spur his elaborate plan for murder."

 

"Of course," Sherlock replies. He tightens the laces on his shoes. A man prepared to run if wind of his plan got through. It's the little details that are obvious to Sherlock. "A name he inwardly cringes at, particularly if it were used in a moment of sexuality. It's _defiant_ of his desires."  
  
He straightens, moving slowly to his feet. His back still hurts, but only barely, and his balance is back. That's better, he thinks. Much better.  
  
"I imagine that's what initially attracted him, what keeps him attracted, despite the plans to kill her. Her defiance."

 

She watches him stand, tighten the laces of his shoes, and straighten again, and nods in approval. He moves with a deliberation that is obvious to her eyes, testing, cautious of his own abilities. The fact that he manages it all indicates he is recovered, those his deliberation means he isn't _completely_ recovered.  
  
Good enough for their purposes. Her plans for Stockholm are simple: to announce their presence in Stockholm to Mycroft Holmes in as stomach-turning a way as possible, then leave before he can find them again.  
  
"I'm becoming more convinced our villain doesn't have a plan to kill his wife at all," she tells him, pocketing her mobile and handing him their murder victim's. That would be the one to send photos to Mycroft with. "I think he's grown attached to her defiance."

 

"I wouldn't tell him that," Sherlock replies. He offers her his arm. "His own ego wouldn't be able to take it."

 

She takes his arm readily, with an ease and familiarity that the heiress and her murderous husband would not have. But they are alone in the train car for the moment, and there is no one here to fool, besides themselves.  
  
"That is an interesting question, now isn't it?" she asks as the train stops, and the conductor's voice rings through the announcement system that they have pulled into Stockholm. "Would our heiress crush his ego?"

 

"She's clever, but keeping him around," he replies. "I think that's entirely up to her. We did discuss their mutual affection last night."  
  
Though, if Sherlock is perfectly honest, he knows very well that there was a very blurred line in that conversation between who they truly were talking about and their personas for this journey.

 

Irene is fully aware that their personas are perilously similar to themselves, that even in their easy jesting of the previous night, the line is utterly blurred. But there is a thrill to dancing in that grey boundary, an ability to play themselves and hide behind the facade of the heiress.  
  
The corridor beyond begins to fill with noise as other passengers begin to shuffle about, and there is a shout from their German conductor insisting everyone proceed orderly through only certain exits, no doubt keeping their assassin and his murderous son quarantined until the authorities could safely transport them.  
  
"I think that depends entirely on her mood," Irene answers lightly. "Whether or not she feels particularly sentimental at the moment."

 

Personas in place, the Woman's outfit changed, and Sherlock's hair rearranged, none of the other passengers appear to even notice them. They become part of the crowd, something ordinary and unusual, but not like their detective and his companion. Sherlock takes this as partially due to their abilities as actors, and partially due to the idiocy of the other train patrons.  
  
"Is she prone to wild moods?" Sherlock asks, pleasantly. "It's something Max would notice, I imagine."

 

The passengers disembarking with them press around, an insistent pressure sweeping them along with the rest out of the train, just one pair of bodies out of the rest, none of them realizing the walking dead within their midst, none of them realizing their secrets were so thoroughly on display.  
  
"She's a consummate professional," Irene replies with a smirk as the passenger wave swept them into the high, vaulted space of Stockholm Central Station. "No one would believe she's capable of wild moods."

 

"No one would believe a dead detective and dominatrix were walking around Sweden, either," Sherlock replies with a smirk. "The question is, _is_ she, not would they believe it?"

 

She laughs, and drums her fingertips against his arm. "I think you've just answered that question for yourself, don't you?"

 

He considers. "I suppose in a way."  
  
They blend in, in their own way. From how she stands to how he lingers, he imagines that he would think them their characters from a distance, apart from the way they hold each other's arms.

 

She pulls out her mobile, not bothering to hide what she is doing as she pulls up a Stockholm newspaper, checks the headlines, which declare that the German chancellor is holding a summit with the leaders of the European Union, including the Prime Minister of Sweden.  
  
"Your family friend is in Germany for the week," she says, adopting the casual Australian accent of her persona. "He won't mind our using his office then."

 

"A whole week," he replies. "You might be able to further on your promise of begging."

 

"You seem very interested in my trying," she answers with a light laugh. Through the wide windows of the station, she could see Stockholm beyond, the city awash in golden dawn light. "Care to be surprised, or would you rather be able to choose your own leash?"

 

"I think you know the answer to that," he replies, smiling at her. He prefers to deduce, and then to see if he's right. She calls that 'surprising', but he, naturally, doesn't see it that way.  
  
"Are you thinking leather and spikes again?" he asks.

 

She should be concerned that they are so wrapped up in each other that they are not even bothering to wear their disguises beyond a superficial accent or a different way of parting their hair. She should be concerned, but she is having too much fun to properly care, too full of anticipation at their pending misbehaviour.  
  
"Fishing for a hint?" she retorts, slipping her arm out of his, though the way her eyes are positively gleaming puts lie to any idea that she's displeased with him. "Now, shall I meet you at the Rosenbad in two hours?"

 

"Yes," Sherlock agrees. "Two hours."  
  
He considers what he needs to accomplish in the two hours until they meet up. Everything he should do. Not the least of which is to prepare for the next section of their journey. He can't get too locked up in the _fun_ part of their trip, lest he forget himself, forget that this will all be over. And far too soon, really. No, no, not soon enough. They have a lot of other things to do in their lives. Their lives away from this holiday.

 

She smiles, and leans towards him. She has to raise herself on tiptoe to reach him, and the gesture reminds Irene of how much she misses her heels, how much she feels unlike herself without them, more vulnerable. "If you keep me waiting, Mr. Holmes," she whispers against his cheek, a warm breath before she steps away with every intention of heading into the city alone, "I will be _very_ displeased."  
  
Still, she is already making plans. Plans for silver chain leashes and braided leather floggers. For blindfolds and ropes, for transportation to Moscow-- no, not directly to Moscow. Someplace in between, perhaps.  
  
She tells herself it is to sow confusion, to slip Mycroft Holmes' seeing eyes, to give Sibyl time to work on Kitty Riley, to contact the ambitious journalist in Vienna...  
  
Just a few more days.

 

He finds himself smirking, enjoying the thrill of their exploits far more than he imagines he might. He thinks about escape routes and ways to return home, and then he thinks about the holidays with the Woman later.  
  
He watches her go, and takes a different route towards the city. He plans to buy more dye for his hair, some traveling clothes, and a warmer coat. Perhaps he'll acquire one for the Woman, too. He also knows of a sect in Serbia that he might contact on his way out of Russia.  
  
He lights a cigarette. He's got two hours, but only two hours. He won't be late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another two months, another installment of _Death Takes A Holiday_ is complete! To all of our readers who have traveled with us thus far, thank you SO MUCH for being with us on our little journey. As always, another installment awaits. _Death Takes A Holiday: Stockholm Syndrome_ will begin to be posted at the beginning of November. Hope to see you then!


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